1. Avant-Garde Sculpture (II)
Revision

2. Evolution
• The decisive step
towards modern
sculpture consisted of
the addition of
combination and
construction to
previous methods of
sculpting and
modelling.
• The use of sheet iron
and wires was
connected with it.

3. Gargallo
• Pablo Gargallo was
already cutting figures
and masks out of sheet
copper.
• Interested in tribal art, he
may have linked the
Spanish tradition with
observation of hammered
and chased African
metalwork.
• He made of it his own
speciality.

4. Gargallo
• He used the
assemblage
technique to create
his images.
• The emptiness of
some areas doted his
work of great drama.
• He avoided the use of
symmetry and some
of his images are full
of strength such as
The Prophet.

5. Julio Gonzalez
• Julio Gonzalez was
an expert blacksmith
• Gonzalez’s works
established the new
art form of iron
sculpture.
• Owing to the material
and the
technique, the volume
of a figure was
reproduced by rods
reaching into and
surrounding space, by
surfaces and rounded
walls.

6. Julio Gonzalez
• His work involved an
inner penetration of
figure and space that
Gonzalez made the
principle of his
sculpture.
• The representations
became, if not exactly
abstract, at least
figurative spatial
diagrams

7. Calder
• He was the artist
who produced the
most delicate wire
sculpture.
• This mechanical
engineer invented
the toy like party
mobile wire figures
more suited to
him.

8. Calder
• He put into practice the
futuristic programme of
sculpture made mobile
with the help of hand- or
motor-driven
apparatuses.
• His forms are combined
with primary colours or
are just a collection of
wires.
• He also produced big
format sculptures.

9. Giacometti
• During his formation he knew Rodin’s work, and when he
went to Paris he entered in contact with all the previous
avant-garde sculpture attempts.
• He knew from ethnic works to those of the most
important artists of the moment
(Matisse, Picasso, Brancusi).

10. Giacometti
• He entered in contact
with the surrealist and
due to this his sculptures
live because of their
significant plastic
formulation and the
endless possible ways of
interpreting them.
• His work in the thirties
acquired the disturbing
dimension which
characterizes the
Surrealism.

11. Giacometti
• From 1935 to 1945 he sought to
reproduce the outward
appearance of figures and heads
as we see them in reality:
– in the distance,
– in space,
– as a part of a much larger field
of vision.
• He strove to introduce
perspective into
sculpture, making use of the
methods employed by
painters, such as
– a decrease in size and
– vaguer definition as the
distance increases, large

12. Giacometti
• He discovered that
making distant figures
smaller was an
unsatisfactory way of
recreating reality.
• He found that the more
accurate way of depicting
people was their extreme
elongation and slimness.
• His images are armatures
of iron rods and plaster.
• His work sometimes
remembers the finish
used by Rodin in Caen’s
Bourgeoisies.