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Lot Essay
Please note this work is accompanied by a certificate issued by Françoise Guiter.
With these evocative, almost Surrealist, forms, Germaine Richier takes her place alongside Pablo Picasso and Henry Moore in the narrative of twentieth century sculpture as one of the pre-eminent practitioners of the drive to free sculpture from the traditional constraints of representation and use its free-flowing forms to delve into the hidden recesses of the human psyche. La Tauromachie is a striking portrayal of a disintegrating human form positioned alongside the remnants of a bull's skull and is a powerful demonstration of Richier's challenge to the hegemony of the closed form in sculpture. With this figure she dissolves away the outer layer to reveal the detailed and intricate armature and hollow spaces that lie within. Powerfully expressive, in terms of both form and texture, Richier claims these creatures portray the haunting and deeply moving battle for survival that humanity has faced throughout its history and as such, this sculpture conveys a universal message to which we can all relate.
La Tauromachie is comprised of two poignant figures; the skull of a bull complete with mighty horns placed next to the remains of a decaying human-like figure. Richier's figures often display a focus which is at odds with the conventions of traditional sculpture. Here, the head--normally the central focus of the human body--has been reduced to a stylized form, with its diminutive horns in stark contrast the powerful horns of his victim lying at his feet. In contrast to the head, Richier turns her attention to the heavily worked torso area in which she peels away the layers of skin to reveal a gnarled and twisted interior, which is in turn supported by two long, spindly legs. All this subverts the normal representation of the human that had dominated two millennia of sculptural practice--a subversion which is deliberate, and one which Richier relishes, "I like thin legs supporting heavy masses," she once commented, "But most sculptors do the opposite, they put a thin body on heavy legs. Yes, they made thick legs when sculpture had a respect for the canon. This I do not care to maintain" (G. Richier, quoted by P. Guth, "Encounter With Germaine Richier" in Yale French Studies, nos. 19-20, New Haven, 1957, p. 82).
Richier begins the sculptural process by painting "construction" lines of the contours of the body directly onto the surface of the clay. Then, with her fingers, she maneuvers the molded material slowly into the form that she wants, with direct pressure and force to manipulate each contour until she achieved the desired effect. The bronze still bears the intricate details of its construction with the surface of reading like a roadmap, taking us on an intoxicating journey through its creation. La Tauromachie is a fanciful creature; its body nothing more than a seemingly empty cavity devoid of recognizable human features. Yet, it is precisely this disquieting quality that, paradoxically, gives additional life to the sculpture.
For La Tauromachie, Richier brings together rich evocations from her ancestral and more contemporary past. The work's title and physical form makes clear references to the proud history of bullfighting for which her hometown of Arles was well known. She would have been familiar with the contradictions that are contained in the majesty and brutality of bullfighting, with its primeval ballet between man and beast rooted in almost unimaginable violence. Conceived in 1953, this work was produced as the dark clouds of war were beginning to clear over Europe and Richier's response to this was not to shy away from the horror of these conflicts but, paradoxically, to confront it and embrace the creative possibilities that she saw. "Our age, when you consider it, is full of talons" she once said, "People bristle, as they do after long wars. It seems to me that in violent works there is just as much sensibility as in poetic ones. There can be just as much wisdom in violence as there is in gentleness" (G. Richier, quoted by P. Guth, ibid).
In subject matter and style this sculpture recalls both Pablo Picasso's Surrealist bullfighting imagery of the 1930s and his sculptures of the early 1950s. Richier shared with Picasso an interest in its mythic, archaic implications. In addition, the robust three-dimensionality and raw surfaces may constitute a response to works such as Picasso's Chèvre of 1950 and Crâne de chèvre, bouteille et bougie of 1951-52. Like Henry Moore during the same year, Richier places her forms in situational relationships. As she wrote: "Finally, the sculpture is a place, an entity, a synthesis of movements. I don't know if the Tauromachy [sic] evokes the sand, but no form, it seems to me, can be separated from the universe, the elements. It is therefore something more than an image" (quoted by L. Flint, Art du XXe siècle: Fondation Peggy Guggenheim, Venise, exh. cat., Paris, 1974, p. 106).
The sense of decay is in part the embodiment of the tensions and doubts of a world still so visibly scarred by the war that had raged through it. It also has a formal purpose, allowing textural plays of light and darkness, presenting a variegated and organic feel to the work. While bullfighting played a great part in Picasso's art during this period, the influence of Alberto Giacometti, with whom Richier shared her wartime exile in Switzerland, is more evident. Not only do the feet and legs of the striding figure recall his work, but the organic build-up of the body is almost an inverted reflection of his work. Likewise, there is a sense of the constituent parts in Richier's work. La Tauromachie appears in part to be the result of the assemblage of found objects, making the scene a product of the real world. Despite this, where Giacometti's forms appear to have been built up, hewn from the clay of life itself, Richier, even in her use of objects from the world of the viewer, explores the opposite process, the decomposition of the figure. Richier implies that, despite his seemingly victorious killing of the bull, the figure is inexorably striding towards his own end.
In the years after the Second World War, Germaine Richier's sculptural figures took on an extraordinary form. She abandoned her training in realist sculpture that she had received from Rodin's assistant, Emile-Antoine Bourdelle and began to create powerful works that combined the formal language of expressionism with the mysterious fantasies of Surrealism. The human body was both the source of her inspiration and the point of departure for her new sculptural forms. Her startlingly original depictions of human and human-like forms helped to establish her work as among the most powerfully expressive art being created in Europe at that time.
With these evocative, almost Surrealist, forms, Germaine Richier takes her place alongside Pablo Picasso and Henry Moore in the narrative of twentieth century sculpture as one of the pre-eminent practitioners of the drive to free sculpture from the traditional constraints of representation and use its free-flowing forms to delve into the hidden recesses of the human psyche. La Tauromachie is a striking portrayal of a disintegrating human form positioned alongside the remnants of a bull's skull and is a powerful demonstration of Richier's challenge to the hegemony of the closed form in sculpture. With this figure she dissolves away the outer layer to reveal the detailed and intricate armature and hollow spaces that lie within. Powerfully expressive, in terms of both form and texture, Richier claims these creatures portray the haunting and deeply moving battle for survival that humanity has faced throughout its history and as such, this sculpture conveys a universal message to which we can all relate.
La Tauromachie is comprised of two poignant figures; the skull of a bull complete with mighty horns placed next to the remains of a decaying human-like figure. Richier's figures often display a focus which is at odds with the conventions of traditional sculpture. Here, the head--normally the central focus of the human body--has been reduced to a stylized form, with its diminutive horns in stark contrast the powerful horns of his victim lying at his feet. In contrast to the head, Richier turns her attention to the heavily worked torso area in which she peels away the layers of skin to reveal a gnarled and twisted interior, which is in turn supported by two long, spindly legs. All this subverts the normal representation of the human that had dominated two millennia of sculptural practice--a subversion which is deliberate, and one which Richier relishes, "I like thin legs supporting heavy masses," she once commented, "But most sculptors do the opposite, they put a thin body on heavy legs. Yes, they made thick legs when sculpture had a respect for the canon. This I do not care to maintain" (G. Richier, quoted by P. Guth, "Encounter With Germaine Richier" in Yale French Studies, nos. 19-20, New Haven, 1957, p. 82).
Richier begins the sculptural process by painting "construction" lines of the contours of the body directly onto the surface of the clay. Then, with her fingers, she maneuvers the molded material slowly into the form that she wants, with direct pressure and force to manipulate each contour until she achieved the desired effect. The bronze still bears the intricate details of its construction with the surface of reading like a roadmap, taking us on an intoxicating journey through its creation. La Tauromachie is a fanciful creature; its body nothing more than a seemingly empty cavity devoid of recognizable human features. Yet, it is precisely this disquieting quality that, paradoxically, gives additional life to the sculpture.
For La Tauromachie, Richier brings together rich evocations from her ancestral and more contemporary past. The work's title and physical form makes clear references to the proud history of bullfighting for which her hometown of Arles was well known. She would have been familiar with the contradictions that are contained in the majesty and brutality of bullfighting, with its primeval ballet between man and beast rooted in almost unimaginable violence. Conceived in 1953, this work was produced as the dark clouds of war were beginning to clear over Europe and Richier's response to this was not to shy away from the horror of these conflicts but, paradoxically, to confront it and embrace the creative possibilities that she saw. "Our age, when you consider it, is full of talons" she once said, "People bristle, as they do after long wars. It seems to me that in violent works there is just as much sensibility as in poetic ones. There can be just as much wisdom in violence as there is in gentleness" (G. Richier, quoted by P. Guth, ibid).
In subject matter and style this sculpture recalls both Pablo Picasso's Surrealist bullfighting imagery of the 1930s and his sculptures of the early 1950s. Richier shared with Picasso an interest in its mythic, archaic implications. In addition, the robust three-dimensionality and raw surfaces may constitute a response to works such as Picasso's Chèvre of 1950 and Crâne de chèvre, bouteille et bougie of 1951-52. Like Henry Moore during the same year, Richier places her forms in situational relationships. As she wrote: "Finally, the sculpture is a place, an entity, a synthesis of movements. I don't know if the Tauromachy [sic] evokes the sand, but no form, it seems to me, can be separated from the universe, the elements. It is therefore something more than an image" (quoted by L. Flint, Art du XXe siècle: Fondation Peggy Guggenheim, Venise, exh. cat., Paris, 1974, p. 106).
The sense of decay is in part the embodiment of the tensions and doubts of a world still so visibly scarred by the war that had raged through it. It also has a formal purpose, allowing textural plays of light and darkness, presenting a variegated and organic feel to the work. While bullfighting played a great part in Picasso's art during this period, the influence of Alberto Giacometti, with whom Richier shared her wartime exile in Switzerland, is more evident. Not only do the feet and legs of the striding figure recall his work, but the organic build-up of the body is almost an inverted reflection of his work. Likewise, there is a sense of the constituent parts in Richier's work. La Tauromachie appears in part to be the result of the assemblage of found objects, making the scene a product of the real world. Despite this, where Giacometti's forms appear to have been built up, hewn from the clay of life itself, Richier, even in her use of objects from the world of the viewer, explores the opposite process, the decomposition of the figure. Richier implies that, despite his seemingly victorious killing of the bull, the figure is inexorably striding towards his own end.
In the years after the Second World War, Germaine Richier's sculptural figures took on an extraordinary form. She abandoned her training in realist sculpture that she had received from Rodin's assistant, Emile-Antoine Bourdelle and began to create powerful works that combined the formal language of expressionism with the mysterious fantasies of Surrealism. The human body was both the source of her inspiration and the point of departure for her new sculptural forms. Her startlingly original depictions of human and human-like forms helped to establish her work as among the most powerfully expressive art being created in Europe at that time.