The Guggenheim Museum, New York
Men have sculpted since the ancient of days to express their feelings and pass on specific messages to their societies. The sculpture The Little French Girl done by Constantine Brancusi in 1918 is one of the most celebrated works by this artist for its simplistic yet exquisite appeal1. The sculpture was first shown to the public in 1917and has gained international acclaim since then. It is a figurative sculpture made from one block of oak that has a conspicuous head showing a yelling child. The sculpture is an abstract and symbolic representation of Brancusi’s perception of human feelings of anguish.
The artist
Constantine Brancusi (1876-1957) was a Romanian sculptor whose career as an artist flourished in France1. Besides The little French Girl, Brancusi left 1200 photographs mostly of combinations of his sculptures and 214 sculptures. He liked to make sculptures of human heads to express his abstract thought on human feelings. Other famous works by Brancusi include The Sleeping Muse (1910), The Endless Column (1938) and Bird in Space (1923). Brancusi had trained as a carpenter and therefore found it easy going sculpting with wood. He concentrated exclusively on sculpting from wood which he considered, “full of metaphoric potential”1. Brancusi portrayed himself as a Romanian peasant woodcutter whilst working in the midst of his sculptures. His sculptures were inspired by Romanian woodwork and contemporary avant-garde’s compositions. Most of Brancusi’s sculptures are metaphorical. Brancusi loved his sculptures and he used to spend time playing with them like toys. He also combined and photographed them in various configurations.
The culture in which Brancusi was brought up coupled with the way he chose to present himself to the public as a peasant sculptor inspired his artworks. The sculpture on The Little French Girl for instance appears simple and is therefore a representation of the simple nature of peasants. Brancusi wanted his sculptures to bear great resemblance to nature and hence his incorporation of a pelvic resembling a tortoise shell.
The sculpture
Fig. 1 Fig. 2
Figures 1 and 2 above show The Little French Girl as done by Richard Shaw (right) and the original sculpture by Constantin Brancusi (left)
The Little French Girl was inspired by African sculpture and the simplicity of Romanian peasant culture. According to Brazianu and Geist, Brancusi sculpted a child he personally knew. The sculpture measures mm. The artwork has a big head measuring 292mm. with clear features of a yelling child (a gaping mouth)2. The sculpture bears a groove on the right part of the head and one grooved “ear” on the left. It also bears a slanting “collar” on the left of the head. The stepped neck about 18 inches length bears grooves all round and resembles a collapsible telescope. Its pelvis resembles a tortoise’s shell while the each of the legs resembles three con-jointed sausages. The whole sculpture rests on a raised wooden platform. At the Guggenheim Museum in New York the entire sculpture is still in perfect condition with a shiny brown color to finish its great looks.
The sculpture bears a unique combination of principles of design. While it is generally asymmetrical, some parts such as the neck and the legs appear perfectly symmetrical. The features on the head and the slightly irregular pelvis are asymmetrical. The brown color used on the sculpture is harmonious with the inspiration behind the sculpture which is African sculpture. Most of the features are highly emphasized such as the head, and the neck. The gaping mouth clearly captures the image of a child yelling. This is the essence of the sculpture; to abstractly present human feelings of anguish. Moreover, the sculpture shows variety in the use of different shapes and resemblances to real objects. While the entire sculpture is made from wood, the pelvic resembles a tortoise shell and the neck a collapsible telescope3. In spite of the variety of shapes employed, the sculpture bears rhythm and shows a balanced use of space.
Initially, Brancusi arranged the sculpture in a group of several others and named the arrangement The child in the world: Mobile Group. Brancusi explained that the arrangement of sculptures portrayed the death of Socrates with a cup of hemlock and in the presence of Plato. Some people interpret the arrangement to portrait of Brancusi and his friend Erik Satie. Satie was an Avant-garde composer. Brancusi often referred Satie to as Socrates while Satie called Brancusi Plato. The cup shown in the sculpture is considered to be a representation of Satie’s head or the upside down representation of his bowler hat4.
Comparisons of the sculpture to other Artworks
Various artists in recent times have been inspired by the sculpture The little French Girl. One of these is Richard Shaw. In 1996 he made a resemblance of the original sculpture from porcelain and gave it the same name. His sculpture can be found at the San Jose Museum of Art. Shaw’s sculpture bears several differences in terms of the material and the dimensions from the original piece by Brancusi. It measures 1594*430*304 mm which differs from the dimensions of the original sculpture. The sculpture is truly witty and is made from food-like materials. The head resembles a pumpkin which alludes to a lovable character in Frank Baum’s The land of Oz. the neck resembles hamburgers while the feet take after hotdogs. In place of the original tortoise shaped shell for a pelvis, Shaw replaces this with a hat. The hat could be his direct representation and his belief that the pelvic in Brancusi’s sculpture was actually an upside down representation of Satie (Brancusi’s friend’s) hat. Beneath Shaw’s piece is a melting wedge to show identity to French identity.
Conclusion
Sculptures are some of the most ancient forms of art with most sculptor expressing abstract though and feelings through various sculptures throughout history. Constantin Brancusi (1876-1857) was a famous Romanian sculptor and photographer who rose to fame for sculpting out of wood. He represented himself as a Romanian peasant woodworker. Upon his death, he left behind 1200 photographs and 215 sculptures. Besides, The Little French Girl, Brancusi is famous for sculpting The Sleeping Muse (1910) and The Endless Column (1938). His famous sculpture The Little French Girl bears the features of a yelling child and is therefore a symbolic representation of human feelings of anguish. The sculpture was made from one block of oak and measures mm. It has a smooth shiny brown finish and is generally asymmetrical. Conspicuous features of the sculpture are the head, the neck which looks like a collapsible telescope and the pelvic which resembles a tortoise shell. The sculpture was inspired by African sculpture and the simplicity of Romanian peasant culture. Various interpretations of the sculpture include that of Brancusi representing his friend Satie in the sculpture or a genuine expression of the feelings of a child in anguish. Artists such as Richard Shaw were inspired by Brancusi’s masterpiece. He made a resemblance of the same from porcelain which bore witty shapes of hamburgers for the neck and hotdogs for the legs. The dimensions of Shaw’s sculpture also differ from those of the original work by Brancusi. The Little French Girls remains an exquisite masterpiece at New York’s Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum defying age and standing tall as lasting legacy to Constantin Brancusi.
Works cited
Brezianu, B.; Geist, S. The Beginnings of Brancusi Art Journal 25 (1) (1965). 15–25.
Sandqvist, Tom. Dada East – The Romanians of Cabaret Voltaire, (MIT Press, 2006).
Guggenheim Museum Bilbao. (n.d.). Museo Guggenheim Bilbao. Retrieved June 6, 2012, from
http://www.guggenheimbilbao.es/secciones/docentes/guia_docentes_temas.php?idioma=
en&id_unidad=27
