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拍品专文
Cast in smooth, polished bronze, completely devoid of surface tooling or texture, Reclining Figure has an almost fluid quality to its sinuous curves, as if it may dissolve and morph into another shape at any moment. Exhibiting a remarkable interplay between three-dimensional form and negative space, this work uses meandering and undulating lines to create the ‘tension, force, and vitality,’ as well as the harmony that Henry Moore sought to convey through his sculpture (quoted in C. Lichtenstein, Henry Moore: Work, Theory, Impact, London, 2008, p. 101). The manner in which the female form is propped up on one sharply pointed arm, her torso elongated and twisting in a complex configuration, is an intriguing example of Moore’s radical vision during these years, as he abstracted and simplified, pierced and thinned the reclining figure in bold new ways.
Originally conceived in 1938, Reclining Figure was initially cast in lead by Moore and his assistant Bernard Meadows, most likely in the small kiln the artist had built in the gardens of his house at Burcroft. During the late 1950s and early 1960s, Moore had begun to reassess many of his unique sculptures from earlier in his career, reimagining them in bronze as a means of ensuring they survived the test of time. Moore highlighted in particular the vulnerability of lead, explaining that a lack of technical expertise in his initial experiments with the material in the 1930s had caused serious issues in the intervening decades: ‘I didn’t know about lead – I didn’t know that you could put a little antimony with it and make it hard – so since then all the leads have been damaged. And they come back to me to be repaired, or to be salvaged – because in some cases if you drop a lead on the floor, on a hard floor, it will just collapse, whereas bronze is almost indestructible. So, to save the idea, I re-cast them in bronze’ (quoted in A. Wilkinson, ed., Henry Moore: Writings and Conversations, Berkeley, 2002, p. 235).
Constructed in undulating, sinuous rhythms, the sculpture elegantly balances volumetric richness with a contrasting sense of space and openness, its forms flowing into one another with a soft, fluid grace. The figure was originally conceived by Moore using a malleable material, most likely wax, and there is an impression of such softness and pliability that makes its way into the metal sculpture. Reducing the upper body to an almost skeletal thinness, the rest of the figure appears almost liquid, its volumes merging and running in to one another, culminating in an amorphous, organic form that stretches outwards in a long, flowing line. While paralleling the biomorphic sculptures favoured by Surrealist artists such as Jean Arp, Moore’s work remained firmly rooted in the human form, which fascinated him with its versatility and universality. As the artist explained: ‘There are fundamental ideas of shape or form that are natural to humans. These are not philosophical ideas I am dealing with. It’s the way we are made as people. It is comparing yourself to what you are making. The human figure is fundamentally the same’ (quoted in A. Elsen, ‘Henry Moore’s Reflections on Sculpture,’ Art Journal, vol. 26, no. 4, Summer 1967, p. 354).
Originally conceived in 1938, Reclining Figure was initially cast in lead by Moore and his assistant Bernard Meadows, most likely in the small kiln the artist had built in the gardens of his house at Burcroft. During the late 1950s and early 1960s, Moore had begun to reassess many of his unique sculptures from earlier in his career, reimagining them in bronze as a means of ensuring they survived the test of time. Moore highlighted in particular the vulnerability of lead, explaining that a lack of technical expertise in his initial experiments with the material in the 1930s had caused serious issues in the intervening decades: ‘I didn’t know about lead – I didn’t know that you could put a little antimony with it and make it hard – so since then all the leads have been damaged. And they come back to me to be repaired, or to be salvaged – because in some cases if you drop a lead on the floor, on a hard floor, it will just collapse, whereas bronze is almost indestructible. So, to save the idea, I re-cast them in bronze’ (quoted in A. Wilkinson, ed., Henry Moore: Writings and Conversations, Berkeley, 2002, p. 235).
Constructed in undulating, sinuous rhythms, the sculpture elegantly balances volumetric richness with a contrasting sense of space and openness, its forms flowing into one another with a soft, fluid grace. The figure was originally conceived by Moore using a malleable material, most likely wax, and there is an impression of such softness and pliability that makes its way into the metal sculpture. Reducing the upper body to an almost skeletal thinness, the rest of the figure appears almost liquid, its volumes merging and running in to one another, culminating in an amorphous, organic form that stretches outwards in a long, flowing line. While paralleling the biomorphic sculptures favoured by Surrealist artists such as Jean Arp, Moore’s work remained firmly rooted in the human form, which fascinated him with its versatility and universality. As the artist explained: ‘There are fundamental ideas of shape or form that are natural to humans. These are not philosophical ideas I am dealing with. It’s the way we are made as people. It is comparing yourself to what you are making. The human figure is fundamentally the same’ (quoted in A. Elsen, ‘Henry Moore’s Reflections on Sculpture,’ Art Journal, vol. 26, no. 4, Summer 1967, p. 354).