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Lot Essay
Danseuse à la palette marks the transition from González's fundamentally planar style of the 1920s and early 1930s to a linear approach. The incorporation of the palette-shape as the formal focus of this figure represents the earlier stylistic component of his evolution, while the linear elements attest to this new direction in his sculpture. By this time González had come to the conclusion that a closed volume or mass constructed in a planar manner was unsuccessful as a symbolic form, because certain surfaces were hidden from the viewer. Linear forms, however, are effective from all sides, and he held that this is the ideal idiom for the sculptor.
"González's sculptures...are compelling because, by virtue of their visible process and technique (and thus the imminent presence of a human hand), they incarnate a precariousness of gesture and emotion. In the linear pieces of approximately 1934 the relationships between the different lengths and sections of metal wire or strips are irregular, nondescriptive and unexpected; yet somehow they express a gravity, a tension and an equilibrium that we identify with the postures of the human figure" (M. Rowell, "Julio González, Technique, Syntax, Context," Julio González, A Retrospective, exh. cat., The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, 1983, pp. 29-30).
"González's sculptures...are compelling because, by virtue of their visible process and technique (and thus the imminent presence of a human hand), they incarnate a precariousness of gesture and emotion. In the linear pieces of approximately 1934 the relationships between the different lengths and sections of metal wire or strips are irregular, nondescriptive and unexpected; yet somehow they express a gravity, a tension and an equilibrium that we identify with the postures of the human figure" (M. Rowell, "Julio González, Technique, Syntax, Context," Julio González, A Retrospective, exh. cat., The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, 1983, pp. 29-30).