THE EXPRESSIVE HUMAN FIGURE: ARTH 200 Paper
jwest5
ARTH2002019sculpturegallery.pptx
SCULPTURE GALLERY
ARTH 200/SPRING 2019
PAPER/DUE NOVEMBER 20/20% OF SEMESTER GRADE
(see complete guidelines in Paper Module on ELMS)
ARTH 200/SPRING 2019/PAPER DUE NOVEMBER 20/20% OF SEMESTER GRADE
THE EXPRESSIVE HUMAN FIGURE
Beauty, bravery, determination, strength, thought, calm, energy, power: artists have always used material and style to create forms that embody physical, spiritual, and psychological states--from godlike perfection to human action and emotion. In writing this paper you have the opportunity to explore aspects of figure sculpture that communicate with the viewer.
1. Having viewed the sculpture of Frederick Douglass in front of Hornbake Library, provide a description and visual analysis using the principles you have practiced in section. After analyzing the form of the work, discuss what its impact might be on a viewer. What did the sculptor do to give the work this impact? How do you perceive Douglass as seen in the sculptor’s work?
Andrew Edwards (sculptor), Frederick Douglass
2015, Bronze, 7’ 6”
University of Maryland, College Park MD
Frederick Douglass was born in 1818 into slavery on the eastern shore of Maryland and lived as a slave in several other Maryland locations. At the age of 12, while in Baltimore, he learned to read, partly by teaching himself. Douglass taught other slaves to read as well and was brutally punished for it. After two failed attempts to escape his master, Douglass finally fled to New York in 1838 at the age of 20.
In the 1840s Douglass became active in the anti-slavery abolitionist movement. In public speeches he presented his audiences with a personal account of his life as a slave and, more important, an indictment of the institution of slavery. During the Civil War period Douglass broadened his message against slavery to include a demand for citizenship and voting rights for African Americans. In later life he continued to use his gifts as a writer and an orator in support of women’s rights, free education, peace, and many other social and political issues. He died in 1895 at the age of 77.
Douglass’s reading, even as an adolescent, proved crucial to the intellectual development that led to his conviction that slavery is immoral. Having educated himself, he came to believe that access to education was vital for the advancement of all African Americans in society. He was a persuasive writer and an eloquent speaker. He wrote for abolitionist newspapers, including the North Star of which he was founder and editor. His 1845 autobiography was widely read and translated into several languages. In it he not only denounced slavery but also argued--against the beliefs of many at the time--that the intellectual and moral capacities of an enslaved black person were equal to those of any other human being.
WORK CONSULTED
Roy E. Finkebine, “Douglass, Frederick,” American National Biography, https://www.anb.org/view/10.1093/anb/9780198606697.001.0001/anb-9780198606697-e-1500186
2. Then compare or contrast the Douglass sculpture to one that you choose from among the following. This work can be any that you choose without regard to historical period, size, material, gender of represented figure, subject matter, style, etc. You might want to choose something very similar or completely opposite. Analyze this second work and discuss the points of comparison and contrast you want to make.
5-26 Warrior (cast bronze with additional metal details); Greek Classical c.500-300 BCE
Reconstruction of original color and armor,
spear
6-18 Augustus of Primaporta; Roman Early Empire 25 BCE-100 CE
5-52 Dying Gallic Trumpeter; Greek Hellenistic c. 300-30 BCE
Ares, marble, Roman 2nd century CE copy of Greek 4th century BCE original, 5 feet high, Palazzo Altemps, Rome
Ares was the Greek god of war in all its violence and chaos. Here, he sits on a rock against which his shield leans; his helmet rests under his left foot. The sword that he holds is sheathed in its scabbard. A small cupid plays at the god’s feet, a reminder of Ares’s relationship with Aphrodite, goddess of love.
Gian Lorenzo Bernini, David, marble, 5 feet 6 inches high, 1623-24, Galleria Borghese, Rome
David, the shepherd of the Hebrew Scriptures (or Old Testament), is about to loose a stone from his slingshot to kill the giant Goliath. This young unarmed man thus became a hero of the Israelites in killing the seemingly unconquerable enemy of his people.
Next to his right leg is a breastplate that King Saul provided, but which David chose not to wear. Near his left foot is the harp that he played so skillfully and with which he later, reputedly, composed the poetic prayers called the Psalms.
Detail of harp and armor
Augustus St. Gaudens, Adams Memorial, bronze, 1891, 5’ 10”
Official title: The Mystery of the Hereafter and The Peace of God that Passeth Understanding but popularly called Grief
Rock Creek Cemetery, Washington, D. C.
This statue adorns the grave of Marion Hooper Adams who committed suicide in 1885 at the age of 42. She was married to the author Henry Adams and by all accounts, their marriage was a happy one. Hooper Adams was deeply engaged in, and admired for, her work as a portrait photographer. Her father had died earlier in 1885 and perhaps profound depression over this loss led her to end her life.
Henry Adams commissioned renowned American sculptor Augustus St. Gaudens to create this statue. It is not a portrait of Marion Hooper Adams but meant, according to both Henry Adams and St. Gaudens, as an evocation of “the mystery of the hereafter.”
Costas Varotsos, The Runner (Dromeas), stacked glass panels on iron frame, 9 feet high, 1994, Athens, Greece
Varotsos created the work to honor Spiridon Louis, the first Greek runner to win a marathon in the modern Olympics in 1896.
Construction: Iron frame and glass panels
David Newton, African Woman (Storyteller), bronze, 7 feet high, 1999, Freedmen’s Cemetery Memorial, Dallas, Texas.
The memorial stands in the cemetery of a large community of freed slaves that developed in the middle of the nineteenth century.
