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拍品專文
‘Our own bodies, our own make up, have the greatest influence on art ... For me everything in the world of form is understood through our own bodies’ – Henry Moore
The world-renowned Modern sculptor Henry Moore is best known for his reclining figure and Mother and Child forms, having returned to these compositions throughout his long and distinguished career in varying degrees of abstraction. Conceived in 1982, Reclining Figure: Open Pose clearly demonstrates his mastery over the form and motif, having worked on sculptures of this subject for nearly sixty years. This is one of the final reclining figures the artist created, along with Reclining Figure, 1982, and Draped Reclining Mother and Baby, 1983, each made while the artist was in his eighties. After 1983, no new sculptures were cast, though some earlier designs were completed and cast.
‘From the very beginning the reclining figure has been my main theme', Moore has declared. ‘The first one I made was around 1924, and probably more than half of my sculptures since then have been reclining figures’ (H. Moore, quoted in A. Wilkinson (ed.) Henry Moore, Writings and Conversations, Aldershot, 2002, p. 212). His reclining figures have ranged from works that are almost Cubist in their abstraction to far more naturalistic representations, some of which even include the textures of clothing. The present work sits somewhere in the middle of this range. Distinct, recognisable shapes impress upon the viewer as being a clearly designated head, arm, torso or leg, despite being elongated or stretched out. Though the proportion of the figure is far from natural, its overall shape feels strongly anthropomorphic, from the undeniably human bend in the knee and arm, to the tension in the shoulder. The reclining figure motif gave Moore the freedom to experiment again and again with his visual language for representing the human form. He has been able to expand upon his ever-growing ideas for representing figures with each new rendition. Moore has written on the subject ‘I want to be quite free of having to find a 'reason' for doing the Reclining Figures, and freer still of having to find a 'meaning' for them. The vital thing for an artist is to have a subject that allows [you] to try out all kinds of formal ideas ... in my case the reclining figure provides chances of that sort. The subject matter is given. It's settled for you, and you know it and like it, so that within it, within the subject that you've done a dozen times before, you are free to invent a completely new form-idea’ (H. Moore, quoted in J. Russell, Henry Moore, London, 1968, p. 28). The artist’s interest in the reclining figure was sparked by a Mayan sculpture, the Chacmool from the pre-Columbian Maya city of Chichen Itza, which he had seen reproduced in Walter Lehmann's Altmexikanische Kunstgeschichte around 1927, and later as a plaster cast in the Musée de l'Homme (now Musée du Quai Branly) in Paris. The Chacmool is a reclining figure propped up on its elbows, with its head turned at a ninety-degree angle from the body. The sculpture deeply impressed Moore with 'its stillness and alertness, a sense of readiness, and the whole presence of it' (H. Moore quoted in A. Wilkinson (ed.) Henry Moore, Writings and Conversations, Aldershot, 2002, p. 21).
Placed higher than the body, the head in Reclining Figure: Open Pose sits with controlled poise, looking down the landscape of the body. The face’s smooth surface is repeated at the same angle in the cross-section of the outer leg, leading them to reflect light together, uniting these outer edges of the piece. The casual and realistic drop of the left shoulder and rounded shoulder-joint create a strong angle, neatly framing the outer right-hand side of the sculpture. The arm slopes down to end in an elegantly folded hand. The work is rhythmic in composition, the outer leg coming down gently to bring the piece together as though positioned temporarily in a dance.
Space within Moore’s reclining figures has always been a key element. In this work, the interplay between solid bronze and the voids between give the figure a strong sense of presence and ownership over a large space, while still retaining its elegance and lightness in form. Central to the figure is the air in the centre, around which the bronze form neatly and protectively wraps. ‘One of the things I would like to think my sculpture has is a force, is a strength, is a life, a vitality from inside it, so that you have a sense that the form is pressing from inside, trying to burst or give off strength from inside itself, rather than having something which is just shaped from outside and is stopped. It's as though you have something trying to make itself come to a shape from inside itself’ (H. Moore, quoted in ibid., pp. 198-199).
Most of Moore’s reclining figures depicted women, and though this one is more ambiguous, is still clearly a feminine form. Moore was also inspired by the landscape around him, seeing the anthropomorphic qualities in the rise and falls of hills, the gentle slopes of streams, the character of imperfect smooth boulders and the shapes made within both land and sea. Combining the cross-hatched texture and earthy colours further contribute to the work’s resemblance to a natural landscape or elegantly eroded stone.
This sculpture has proved key in Moore’s repertoire, widely established as an impressive and important work. Other casts of Reclining Figure: Open Pose are in the collections of the Henry Moore Foundation; Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City; and Tel Aviv Museum of Art. The cast of this work owned by the Henry Moore Foundation was even selected from among its large collection of Moore works to be displayed in No. 10 Downing Street for the Prime Minister and Cabinet to enjoy in the late 1980s, emphasising the importance of Reclining Figure: Open Pose within British cultural heritage.
The world-renowned Modern sculptor Henry Moore is best known for his reclining figure and Mother and Child forms, having returned to these compositions throughout his long and distinguished career in varying degrees of abstraction. Conceived in 1982, Reclining Figure: Open Pose clearly demonstrates his mastery over the form and motif, having worked on sculptures of this subject for nearly sixty years. This is one of the final reclining figures the artist created, along with Reclining Figure, 1982, and Draped Reclining Mother and Baby, 1983, each made while the artist was in his eighties. After 1983, no new sculptures were cast, though some earlier designs were completed and cast.
‘From the very beginning the reclining figure has been my main theme', Moore has declared. ‘The first one I made was around 1924, and probably more than half of my sculptures since then have been reclining figures’ (H. Moore, quoted in A. Wilkinson (ed.) Henry Moore, Writings and Conversations, Aldershot, 2002, p. 212). His reclining figures have ranged from works that are almost Cubist in their abstraction to far more naturalistic representations, some of which even include the textures of clothing. The present work sits somewhere in the middle of this range. Distinct, recognisable shapes impress upon the viewer as being a clearly designated head, arm, torso or leg, despite being elongated or stretched out. Though the proportion of the figure is far from natural, its overall shape feels strongly anthropomorphic, from the undeniably human bend in the knee and arm, to the tension in the shoulder. The reclining figure motif gave Moore the freedom to experiment again and again with his visual language for representing the human form. He has been able to expand upon his ever-growing ideas for representing figures with each new rendition. Moore has written on the subject ‘I want to be quite free of having to find a 'reason' for doing the Reclining Figures, and freer still of having to find a 'meaning' for them. The vital thing for an artist is to have a subject that allows [you] to try out all kinds of formal ideas ... in my case the reclining figure provides chances of that sort. The subject matter is given. It's settled for you, and you know it and like it, so that within it, within the subject that you've done a dozen times before, you are free to invent a completely new form-idea’ (H. Moore, quoted in J. Russell, Henry Moore, London, 1968, p. 28). The artist’s interest in the reclining figure was sparked by a Mayan sculpture, the Chacmool from the pre-Columbian Maya city of Chichen Itza, which he had seen reproduced in Walter Lehmann's Altmexikanische Kunstgeschichte around 1927, and later as a plaster cast in the Musée de l'Homme (now Musée du Quai Branly) in Paris. The Chacmool is a reclining figure propped up on its elbows, with its head turned at a ninety-degree angle from the body. The sculpture deeply impressed Moore with 'its stillness and alertness, a sense of readiness, and the whole presence of it' (H. Moore quoted in A. Wilkinson (ed.) Henry Moore, Writings and Conversations, Aldershot, 2002, p. 21).
Placed higher than the body, the head in Reclining Figure: Open Pose sits with controlled poise, looking down the landscape of the body. The face’s smooth surface is repeated at the same angle in the cross-section of the outer leg, leading them to reflect light together, uniting these outer edges of the piece. The casual and realistic drop of the left shoulder and rounded shoulder-joint create a strong angle, neatly framing the outer right-hand side of the sculpture. The arm slopes down to end in an elegantly folded hand. The work is rhythmic in composition, the outer leg coming down gently to bring the piece together as though positioned temporarily in a dance.
Space within Moore’s reclining figures has always been a key element. In this work, the interplay between solid bronze and the voids between give the figure a strong sense of presence and ownership over a large space, while still retaining its elegance and lightness in form. Central to the figure is the air in the centre, around which the bronze form neatly and protectively wraps. ‘One of the things I would like to think my sculpture has is a force, is a strength, is a life, a vitality from inside it, so that you have a sense that the form is pressing from inside, trying to burst or give off strength from inside itself, rather than having something which is just shaped from outside and is stopped. It's as though you have something trying to make itself come to a shape from inside itself’ (H. Moore, quoted in ibid., pp. 198-199).
Most of Moore’s reclining figures depicted women, and though this one is more ambiguous, is still clearly a feminine form. Moore was also inspired by the landscape around him, seeing the anthropomorphic qualities in the rise and falls of hills, the gentle slopes of streams, the character of imperfect smooth boulders and the shapes made within both land and sea. Combining the cross-hatched texture and earthy colours further contribute to the work’s resemblance to a natural landscape or elegantly eroded stone.
This sculpture has proved key in Moore’s repertoire, widely established as an impressive and important work. Other casts of Reclining Figure: Open Pose are in the collections of the Henry Moore Foundation; Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City; and Tel Aviv Museum of Art. The cast of this work owned by the Henry Moore Foundation was even selected from among its large collection of Moore works to be displayed in No. 10 Downing Street for the Prime Minister and Cabinet to enjoy in the late 1980s, emphasising the importance of Reclining Figure: Open Pose within British cultural heritage.