The Art of Sculpture

by Catherine Evans

In May of this year, I went to a sculpture exhibition held in the gardens of Kingham Lodge in Oxfordshire. It’s a private house, but every couple of years the family who own it open the gardens to show not only their private collection of sculptures, but also a staggeringly wonderful display by established and new and upcoming talent to the public. The entry fee all goes to charity, and the the vast majority of visiting pieces are available for sale.

Two months later, I find myself still thinking about this exhibition often, and whenever I have five minutes, I look at some of the pictures I took that day. Of course it didn’t hurt that it was a beautiful late spring afternoon, that the gardens are breathtakingly beautiful, with formal lawns, a wildflower area, themed flower beds, herb gardens, hidden pathways and lovely water features, including a large pond. There were hundreds of sculptures, formally displayed in rows, peeping out of the flowerbeds, amongst the bushes, in the nooks of the trees, even amongst the gurgling water features. Many were naturalistic, others were stylised. One of the hardest aspects of being there was to obey the injunction not to touch. Of course I obeyed this. Repeated touch can create an unnatural shine and can destroy the delicate patina of a sculpture. If any proof were needed, the statue of Molly Malone in Dublin provides it. Her bust has been touched repeatedly ‘for luck’ and now shines like a beacon, leading to the #LeaveMollymAlone initiative. By refraining to touch, it’s possible to imagine how it would feel in your body if you did. This should be enough.

Why is sculpture such an important aspect of art? The images are frozen, yet some are impossibly alive. Three dimensions allow the viewer to move around them, something not possible with conventional representational art. The garden and the sculptures are mutually complementary. The organic living matter surrounding the pieces is a natural, moving gallery, whereas the sculptures are permanent and unchanging, or so you would think, but they do change, having a special relationship with space, light, shadow, weather and time. They also change depending on the viewer. The artist contributes only so much, the viewer has to do the rest. Whether realistic or abstract, the viewer’s interpretation depends on their taste, their mood, their attitude, education, culture, background, preferences, knowledge, their personal appreciation of skill, how they interpret the meaning and above all, whether they have an emotional response. This isn’t something that can be predicted.

Sometimes exposure to art can result in overkill. I find it hard to see too much at once, whereas somehow sculpture in a garden feels more emotionally accessible than in a white-cube gallery. Perhaps it’s because I was outdoors with the pieces, enjoying the greenery, the magnificent trees and foliage, with the sun on my face and the breeze on my skin. As Henry Moore put it: “Sculpture is an art of the open air. Daylight, sunlight is necessary to it.” I could absorb more and more of it without viewer fatigue, whereas galleries and museums inspire thought and awe and pleasure, a huge appreciation of beauty and talent … until suddenly they don’t, and you absolutely have to get out of there.

Antony Gormley is an artist who brings together the spiritual and civic weight of public sculpture. He’s most famous for his huge Angel of the North, a symbol of endurance, made of weathering steel, and beautifully blending with the northern landscape. The angel connects the area’s coal mining past with the information age future. His most moving work, in my view, are the one hundred cast iron figures on Crosby Beach near Liverpool, each modelled on Gormley’s own body. They face the sea and are partially submerged at high tide, collectively an evocation of ultimate loneliness and the relentless passing of time. Each figure weighs around 650 kilograms, fixed to steel piles driven deep into the sand, set in concrete bases to prevent them from toppling or shifting due to weather or the tides. They are utterly still and permanent, even as the sea moves around them. They are spaced across three kilometers of coastline, and extend almost a kilometer out to sea. I saw them once in morning light, but I would love to see them at sunset, where I imagine they would make a heartbreaking sight, being covered by water or darkness, each naked and alone. Gormley speaks of using the body ‘as a place rather than a thing. A place of memory, transformation and imagination.’

Michaelangelo, possibly one of the greatest sculptors ever to have lived, said: ‘I saw the angel in the marble, and carved until I set him free.’ He believed that the sculptor merely had to carefully remove the excess material. This is a metaphor for all creative processes. All the artist has to do is uncover what is already there. Sculpture is unique as it captures a moment, a gesture, and tells a wordless story via stasis.

Yet stasis does not present the whole picture. There are kinetic sculptures, challenging the idea that sculpture should be permanently immobile. These move by wind, water, motors, mechanics and even by human interaction. There’s a performative aspect to kinetic sculpture. Alexander Calder’s mobiles move within space due to air currents, creating constantly shifting shapes and shadows. Dutch artist Theo Jansen said “The walls between art and engineering exist only in our minds.” His magnificent strandbeests, or ‘beach animals’ are huge skeletal structures made of plastic tubing that are like giant matchstick figures with sails that acquire the ability to move with wind power, eerily acquiring realistic movement without motors.

A stunning example of kinetic sculpture is Tamara Kvesitadze’s ‘Ali and Nino’, two giant metal figures installed in Batumi, Georgia, that slowly move towards each other, merge briefly, then pass each other and separate, representing a poetic yet tragic love story. The figures are eight meters tall, made of stainless steel and composed of horizontal slices mounted on rotating platforms. Each evening at 7pm, they begin to move towards each other, merge perfectly, then pass each other and diverge. The two figures are often illuminated at night, and visually represent themes of love, division and the transient nature of unity. Deeply emotional, the statues were originally named ‘Man and Woman’ then renamed after a 1937 novel set against wartime cultural divisions, featuring Ali, an Azerbaijani Muslim, and Nino, a Georgian Christian. Gormley’s figures are static among the eternally shifting tides, and Ali and Nino move to encapsulate narrative, time and motion. Both harnessing beauty and the imagination to underscore themes of connection, disconnection and separation, both poetic, both deeply emotional.

I don’t have any sculpture in my garden, other than a small creepy stone angel that could have come from Doctor Who’s Blink. The episode features weeping angels, that can only move when unobserved, hence the warning: ‘Don’t blink! Blink and you’re dead.’ The episode plays on the inherent stillness of statues, and the resulting assumption that they’re harmless. The angels in the episode are the ultimate expression of kinetic potential: motion locked in matter. Sculptures will always fascinate and unsettle in equal measure. I’m fond of my small creepy angel, small and creepy though it is. It’s missing a wing, thanks to an overserved neighbour with a wild elbow. Fortunately, Antony Gormley and Michelangelo’s angels will be rather more enduring.