Studio: international art (79.1920)

JACOB EPSTEIN: ARTIST-PHILOSOPHER

been subjected to persecution. He has
been the subject of attacks ever since his
statues first went up on the building of the
British Medical Association in the Strand.
Rodin, before him, had been subjected to
similar attacks. One knew, and the other
knows, what it means to want to give great
gifts, greater than men are willing to
receive ; and to have these questioned, and
even rejected. This, perhaps, enables a
great artist, to some degree, to enter the
psychology of the most supreme of all
artists, of Him who was the greatest of all
rejected. 0 0 0 0 0

All these factors, then, enter into the
conception of Epstein's Christ. 0 0

On the technical side, we find this
austere theme happily wedded to an
equally austere handling. The figure is
built up like a pillar. Almost rigidly
perpendicular, monolithic, the thing has
significance as a shape, and is monumental
in a sense that Rodin's work is not; you

u HELENE.” BY
JACOB EPSTEIN

I78

can view the statue by itself, but you can
equally imagine it as falling into the struc-
ture, and forming an integral part, of a
Gothic cathedral. One can also see how
all of the sculptor’s previous achievements
have served as a preparation for this. In no
earlier work has he so successfully merged
abstract qualities with a sense of reality,
and reconciled, as it were, art with life.
Some petty criticisms have been made of
the largeness of the hands and feet; but it
must be borne in mind that Christ was a
carpenter by trade, and that the motor-car
had not yet been invented. A prophet
walked the hills and valleys and crude
roads of Judea on his feet, and was glad if
at the journey's end he was rewarded by
having his feet anointed with oil. 0 0

In spite of being portraits of real people,
which, if one knows the originals, one
cannot fail to recognize as precise like-
nesses, the sculptor's busts have a measure
of abstractness hardly less marked than
the figure of The Christ. And this abstract-
ness, both in the decorative and the monu-
mental sense, is the measure of the
sculptor's genius. The wonder of it is
that far from robbing the heads of their
character, these qualities are actually used
to emphasize it. Consider the head of
Gabrieile Soene in the recent exhibition at
the Leicester Galleries. There is no shirk-
ing here of the petty details of the sitter’s
anatomy. Every slight angle or curve,
every slight contour of flesh and bone,
every suggestion of a living tremor, is
expressed on the subtly throbbing surfaces ;
the extremely sensitive character of the
sitter is also apparent; and yet with all
this, the portrait is an “ arrangement,” if
you can use the word with regard to
sculpture ; the hair, the folds of the thin,
clinging garment, the poise of the whole
thing, are all merged in a very simple,
austerely decorative integrity. The same
dignified beauty is apparent whether you
look at the challenging head of Betty May,
the eloquently poised Lillian Shelley, the
exquisite feminine grace of “ Meum ” with
the fan, the characterfulness of An American
Soldier. But the secret which makes the
greatness of these busts is the same as of
the Christ figure, and that is that Life and
Art are reconciled, and are one. And in
this sense, these works are eternal. 0