Understanding Sculpture — Transcript

Sculpture is going to be a little bit different than what we saw in two-dimensional art, looking at drawing and painting. And that's, of course, another video. Here, we're focusing on sculptures, how they're made, and their composition, as well as issues you run into when you take art from two to three dimensions.

you run into when you take art from two to three dimensions now sculpture by definition is three-dimensional art and it takes on a multitude of forms the problem is we get into this strange muddy area where somewhere between

Now, sculpture by definition is three-dimensional art, and it takes on a multitude of forms. The problem is we get into this strange muddy area where somewhere between painting and sculpture, there's a painting with a really high painted texture on it, or someone has attached something to it. And suddenly, you look at it and you say, is that sculpture? Is that painting? It creates this muddy territory.

territory we also get relief sculpture that could have as little texture as a painting and so there is muddy territory there i want you to be aware that there is that muddy territory but this is not the place where i'm going to

We also get relief sculpture that could have as little texture as a painting, and so there is muddy territory there. I want you to be aware that there is that muddy territory, but this is not the place where I'm going to dig into that. That may come up in a future, more advanced video. Here, I'm just trying to introduce the ideas of sculpture, just like I introduced two-dimensional art.

in a more classic sense paintings tend to be two-dimensional sculptures tend to be three-dimensional and since paintings are flat and two-dimensional that means there's a lot of things that we don't have to worry about if we happen to be painters

Now, there are, of course, massive differences between painting and sculpture. In a more classic sense, paintings tend to be two-dimensional. Sculptures tend to be three-dimensional. And since paintings are flat and two-dimensional, that means there's a lot of things that we don't have to worry about if we happen to be painters.

requires an understanding of engineering because the materials they're working with have actual weight have characteristics and those characteristics do not match the thing that they're portraying so consequently for example this net this is all one piece of marble this

For example, weight and engineering. I'm simply worried about creating the illusion of depth and creating an image. I'm not worried about whether or not that image will collapse off of the canvas. That's not something that typically happens. However, sculpture requires an understanding of engineering because the materials they're working with have actual weight, have characteristics, and those characteristics do not match the thing that they're portraying.

three-dimensional sculpture i need to take that weight and move it to the ground in a way that is safe and in a way that is stable and this becomes even more difficult when you start moving into the human form because humans

So consequently, for example, this net, this is all one piece of marble. This net is carved out of marble, and the sculptor would have had to understand how the weight is moving through that net, how it gets to the ground. Because, of course, that's always going to be the central problem of all three-dimensional sculpture. I need to take that weight and move it to the ground in a way that is safe and in a way that is stable.

there's always a big rock outcropping or something holding them up in most cases the reason is marble while very strong is very brittle and humans have these poor bits of engineering things like ankles if i were to ask you how many of

And this becomes even more difficult when you start moving into the human form because humans weren't really well engineered when you think about it. Let's say I'm doing a marble sculpture like you see on the right, maybe not that detailed but still a human form like you see on the right. And when you look at these sculptures, there's always a big rock outcropping or something holding them up in most cases.

very top heavy human form i mean all of our weight is up here generally speaking and i'm going to take all of that weight and i need to move it through this point the ankle i'm trying to get

The reason is marble, while very strong, is very brittle. And humans have these poor bits of engineering, things like ankles. If I were to ask you how many of you have twisted your ankle or broken an ankle at some point in your life, more than likely most of your hands would go up. And yet in sculpture, I'm now expecting all of that weight of the human form, the very top-heavy human form. I mean, all of our weight is up here generally speaking, and I'm going to take all of that weight and I need to move it through this point, the ankle. I'm trying to get to the ankle.

actually moving around they flex they move if you twist them they don't necessarily break marble not so much it doesn't bend so much as it breaks immediately so you see where we start running into problems when you move into

That's why oftentimes you'll see ankles that are overbuilt in sculpture, specifically to take the engineering, to take the weight and move it down into the ground. So you see where there's a problem, and humans, our ankles are flexible. If you're actually moving around, they flex, they move. If you twist them, they don't necessarily break. Marble, not so much. It doesn't bend so much as it breaks immediately.

sculpture can be described as in the round relief linear and this refers to dimensionality how three-dimensional is it now the most classic form that you think of when you think of sculpture is sculpture in the round this is where all the sides

So you see where we start running into problems when you move into sculpture. You start having to deal with engineering, with how that weight will be transferred from the form into the ground. But before we get into more of that, let's deal with some of the basics. Let's deal with dimensionality now.

form especially the human form and move it down safely into the ground and also in a way that it's not going to tip over easily i don't want to statue where a breeze or a young child can walk

Sculpture can be described as in the round, relief, linear, and this refers to dimensionality, how three-dimensional is it. Now, the most classic form that you think of when you think of sculpture is sculpture in the round. This is where all the sides are carved. You could literally walk around the sculpture and see a different form as you move.

is a work that is still attached to the background from which it is carved so in other words it's all carved from one element one piece in this case a piece of stone but it's not fully detached like we

This is a very difficult form because you need to take engineering and gravity into account. Obviously, we need to take that top-heavy form, especially the human form, and move it down safely into the ground and also in a way that it's not going to tip over easily. I don't want a statue where a breeze or a young child can walk along and push it and suddenly the whole thing tips over. Obviously, that's not good for anyone's sculpture.

another form of sculpture like this where this is a relief sculpture but you'll notice the figures in the front are almost fully in the round it's almost like they were just super glued into place this would be partially full

So there's a lot that needs to be taken into account. A slightly easier form, arguably from the engineering sense, is relief sculpture. Now, relief sculpture is a work that is still attached to the background from which it is carved. So in other words, it's all carved from one element, one piece, in this case a piece of stone, but it's not fully detached like we would see in a sculpture in the round.

in much of the background up here this is low relief sculpture so there's not a lot of dimensionality here a lot of it is almost scratched in whereas here we would describe this as partially full round or high relief as

The engineering obviously is easier because the pieces are not going to fall off if they're still part of the stone. And this can be something that is massive, partially full round, which is another form of sculpture like this, where this is a relief sculpture, but you'll notice the figures in the front are almost fully in the round. It's almost like they were just super glued into place. This would be partially full round.

it sort of lacks dimensionality a line in and of itself doesn't as such have three-dimensional characteristics but if you put them for example on a mobile like this then those lines start to move and interact and you get a sense of

It's not a term that we use a lot in art history, but it does come up on occasion, so I want to introduce you to it. You can also have low relief, which is what we see, for example, in much of the background up here. This is low relief sculpture. So there's not a lot of dimensionality here. A lot of it is almost scratched in, whereas here we would describe this as partially full round or high relief as we move into this part of the sculpture.

execution refers to how you're creating the piece this would be technique so we have subtraction this is your classic stone carving or wood carving so what they're doing is they are removing material they're not adding material they're removing it and it is very difficult

Then we have linear. Now, this is a little different form here. We emphasize construction with linear elements such as wire or neon signs. Either one would be considered a linear sculpture, and you'll notice that it sort of lacks dimensionality. A line in and of itself doesn't, as such, have three-dimensional characteristics, but if you put them, for example, on a mobile like this, then those lines start to move and interact, and you get a sense of three-dimensionality.

onto a piece of marble and you can't just glue wood back onto a wooden sculpture it doesn't work that way so it's a very difficult form but it does create some of the greatest pieces of art that we've ever seen the donatello much

Now, we also, when we talk about sculpture, have to deal with methods of execution, and this would be a particularly horrific one. You put, they put you in a cage. You see these rocks. You run. But apart from a funny sculpture, execution refers to how you're creating the piece. This would be technique.

so in this case you see a video or sort of short clips giving you that sense of addition of creation this is usually done with wax or clay and it's partially used with the lost wax method or some kind of molding

So we have subtraction. This is your classic stone carving or wood carving. So what they're doing is they are removing material. They're not adding material; they're removing it. And it is very difficult because in this form, for the most part, if you make a mistake, you pretty much have to trash it or somehow change the composition to hide the fact that you made the mistake in the first place because you can't just add stone back onto a piece of marble, and you can't just glue wood back onto a wooden sculpture. It doesn't work that way.

construction now what makes construction separate from additive additive obviously i'm adding things so construction you would think it would be the same thing but here what we're doing is we're taking pre-formed pieces of material and fabricating something new out of them so instead of

So it's a very difficult form, but it does create some of the greatest pieces of art that we've ever seen. The Donatello, much of the Greek statuary, etc., would be done in marble in subtraction. Well, really the Roman statue, but that's getting into a whole different issue.

then we have substitution remember the additive process that's where things get interesting because substitution starts with the additive process frequently some form of wax or clay statue which you will then build a shell of clay or silica or other material

Then we have additive technique. This is where we are adding material to create the sculpture. So in this case, you see a video or sort of short clips giving you that sense of addition of creation. This is usually done with wax or clay, and it's partially used with the lost wax method or some kind of molding method.

the mold apart i take the original out and then i put the mold together to pour in whatever's going in but in art history and in art we tend to see a different form we tend to use the

Frequently, the wax or clay is not the final piece. It will be created into something else, but the start of the process when you're creating the initial form is known as an add.

going to do is you create the armature here's our clay model that's what we were seeing getting built and then what you do is you put a layer of wax over the statue over your clay and that wax will take on

you'll carve into it in areas of fine detail and that's where all the finished detail will exist also the depth of the wax is how thick the metal will be when you're done so you have to be very

careful of that and then what you do is you take it you cover it again in clay or silica or something else and then you heat it up this melts the wax out leaving a void that you pour your molten metal into and

then you break the mold and you have your finished piece it seems pretty straightforward it's actually a little more complicated but this is you know obviously a fairly simple explanation of it in the ancient world they're using this

technique primarily to save on the metals because otherwise i have to create a solid piece and this creates a hollow piece or at worst there might be clay inside of it although usually the clay you can break it out from inside the

bronze and you get this very light beautiful bronze form it also allows them to move that form in ways that they can't with marble because the weight is going to be different so moving on from that we also have

manipulation and this is where i'm not really adding or subtracting but rather shaping a form so this would be pottery for example taking a pliable material and shaping it into some final form this is very common you wouldn't

typically think of pottery as sculpture but of course it is three-dimensional art so it does fit into that category so let's move on to the issues of composition when we deal with sculpture and many of these issues i've already covered into in

understanding 2d ideas such as line form color mass texture etc will take on a lot of ideas from the two-dimensional world and they simply apply to the three-dimensional world the same way that they would in 2d but there will be some differences so i

want to focus on those differences here so let's start by looking at some of these elements of composition in sculpture first of all sculpture has literal mass when we talked in two-dimensional art about mass we talked about the illusion

of volume or the illusion of mass of course sculpture actually has mass so that's going to set it apart it's going to be a little bit different and this also includes handling that mass and getting that weight safely into the

ground as we've talked about with the engineering side of sculpture line and form interact the same way that we saw in two-dimensional art so all of those same ideas when it comes to positive form negative space line are going to carry over and it may

not be terribly obvious obviously when you get away from linear form you don't think of line in sculpture but it does have implied line and it does have color edge obviously the head of david here or a casting thereof

has an edge to it and so we do have line there even though it's not the thing we tend to think about we have a couple of different forms one is called open form this directs the eye through the piece and out beyond the

work very useful if i've got a group of sculptures that are all interacting so for example this sculpture may be zeus or poseidon depending if you put a trident or a lightning bolt in his hand really otherwise it would be the same

and he's probably looking out at an enemy that we no longer have so when you look at this piece it's open form it directs your eye out so generally with sculpture you're going to start somewhere in the center

of mass this is where you're going to start looking at if it's a human sculpture you generally start with the face just like you do in social interactions and you're going to move through the piece you're going to look at it but

you're constantly pushed out because this hand is pointing out his gaze is pointing this way and he would have some kind of weapon here and that would also be pointed out so it creates open form pushing you to

look at something else then we've closed form now closed form constantly directing your eye back into the piece the artist doesn't want you moving out of it he wants you to stick around in that sculpture this is going to be common in

religious or philosophical images here we see an image of the buddha and the idea of course is to keep you within the sculpture contemplating the example that he set his lessons his ideas we will see this a lot

with religious sculptures either from the classical world or really anywhere when we move through the world we will see this use of closed form in religious pieces where you're supposed to pray to or contemplate a specific god or idea

now of course we also have the idea of negative space and these are openings and outside ideas that can be negative space and in sculpture it becomes more complicated than in painting in painting the negative space is limited by the size of the canvas of

course in sculpture especially outdoor sculpture we don't have the same limitation if you think of the statue of liberty its negative space stretches from new york to new jersey and if i've ever found a negative space it's new jersey

so this could be something a form that is between the elements just like we saw in two-dimensional but when we move into the 3d world it can take on a whole different meaning or whole different idea here we see a man with a

bag on the right and he's giving us the idea the impression that he is a man of the sea because of course we're seeing right through him the artist is taking advantage of that negative space so when you see cutouts in sculpture

remember that those cutouts that negative space that missing element could actually be the most important element that we see just like in two-dimensional art the negative space can have just as much meaning as the positive space or the elements that make up the

composition in terms of color things get rather interesting color can come from the material as we see on the right from an olmec figure or omek face or it can be painted on now i should point out that almost

all sculpture in the western world is going to be painted all the way through the medieval period it's only by the renaissance that we stopped painting sculpture and buildings the great cathedrals would have been painted and brightly the pantheon would have

been painted the parthenon would have been painted the sculptures would have been painted the reason we don't is when those sculptures are dug up the people who find them find this horribly chipped paint and frequently scrape it off and then

sell it and that's what people got used to that these are white sculptures that's what the renaissance artists are looking at and so we get this tradition of the white marble statue but so when it comes to western statuary

especially from the classical world you don't read it as white marble you need to understand as it may have been painted in other parts of the world such as mesoamerica they do paint some pieces but other pieces they appear to have left plain such as

the jade face that you see on the right so you do read into the color you do try and understand why the artist made those color choices that they did texture plays another role now texture can convey emotion and movement here we see a

statue by rodin known as the burgers of calais if you look carefully you can see wendy's over here and burger king not really willing to show anyone any emotion and mcdonald's running away [Music] but the idea is these men are going to

their certain death and the texture gives us that sense in a stronger way than simply depicting their emotions in natural form here we see what is obviously an additional bit of texture to the forehead to the nose to the face and it gives us

this sense of a man who is having a very difficult time walking to his death even knowing that what he's doing is quite honorable and quite appropriate so the use of texture can do that it catches the light

from the sun a museum wherever it happens to be and gives you a certain impression now if it happens to be outdoors the texture can actually make the piece seem to move as well which is what we see

with the burgers of calais as the sun traverses the sky we also have to deal with proportion of course proportion is the relationship of shapes and where we tend to think of proportion in sculpture is in the human form all of these

proportions of course have been written down they've been studied there's all sorts of great numbers and things that you can study to determine the proper human form or the most beautiful human form 1 1.618 to 1 is the golden ratio that's

the proportion that applies to almost all humans so if you look at the different bones in your finger the second the middle knuckle is 1.618 times longer that second bone is 1.618 long times longer than the tip of your finger

just like you can do these measurements throughout the body uh the height to the width of the head the height to the width of the eye etc and work through it now where that becomes important when it comes to sculpture and

specifically human sculpture is you need to keep in mind that the ideas of proper proportion change from society to society and culture to culture so what we see as the perfect human form the david on the left would not necessarily be

read the same way in say gupta period india where they see the perfect form is more spiritual as not having this musculature and development because that's a little bit more materialistic it's also not reflective of their society so this idea

of using proportions can change from group to group but proportions mean things in sculpture just like they would in drawing and painting but becomes a bigger issue when you're dealing with a three-dimensional form because there's more proportions that have to be

right so let's look at some other factors in sculpture we have the idea of articulation or eye movement and i've touched on this this is how the eye moves from one element to the next within a sculpture painting

or photograph and the eye will always move in certain predictable ways when we come into a statue for example we will always come in somewhere around the center of mass i keep using that term really the largest section

or the face in this case it's an abstract human form there is no identifiable face right off the top so you're probably going to come in somewhere here and then you're going to move around the piece usually following shapes so your eye

doesn't usually just bounce randomly but it does more or less follow so you might follow one leg down and then you go back up that leg and you go down the other leg and then you come up to

the head and you move around it artists can predict roughly where you're going to move throughout the piece because we have studies of this but also it's been understood for a long time it's a very important element of storytelling and we touched on this

in two-dimensional as well the idea of moving your focus throughout the piece in sculpture it becomes trickier because of course not only are you looking at from this angle but you can walk around the piece which means i need to think about what angles you're

going to see from all different directions if i'm a sculptor then we have focal area this is the area in the composition where your eye is going to be naturally drawn this is where you start so with human figures it tends to

be the face or center of mass with other forms it tends to be certain specific things if there is movement you will certainly look there movement will always draw the eye in this case we see what looks like an

arrow so our eye is automatically drawn to whatever is down here happens to be alcohol but it works this is where the artist is trying to draw your eye in sometimes it's less obvious than others but it works with articulation it

describes where you're going to start in the statue or in the sculpture and then you use articulation to describe where your eye moves after so this is the point of movement sorry if there's a point of movement it

immediately becomes the focus now there are other forms of sculpture that we don't often think of as sculpture such as ephemeral art now ephemeral art was designed to be transitory to be temporary it's supposed to make a statement

and cease to exist it originally was developed as a protest against the gallery and art system because you can't sell all of these rocks in the creek you can't sell the spiral jetty because you can't actually take it apart

and put it all back together again it just doesn't happen so consequently you can only sell photographs it creates a more pure form or at least that's what many artists believe and it's meant to be temporary it's meant to be something that only exists

for a short time this is very different from the western artistic tradition where we constantly restore paintings and sculptures and everything else we constantly try to preserve ephemeral art is very very different from that you are looking at something that may

not exist tomorrow and no one is attempting to save it in theory although of course once the artist is gone well frequently people get involved but that's a whole different ball of wax then we have found art these are pieces

they're created from undisguised but often modified objects or products that are not normally seen as art these are objects that become art due to the artist's hand or not due to the artist hand but because the artist chooses

the piece from the original setting fountain by duchamp is a famous example of this this is a urinal all he does is tip it on its back and then puts a signature and a date on it and calls it

done calls it found art that is his process and what foundart does is it sets off a couple of different thought processes first of all often times the artist is trying to encourage us to look at an everyday

object something that would be industrial design or commercial design and look at his art if i work for kohler for example or american standard for six months designing a urinal i might see it as art you might see it as

well that thing in the bathroom that you use in a rather grotesque way if you happen to be the urinal so they may be asking you to look at as a piece of art secondly they may be asking you to have a conversation about

what is art does this qualify as art does it count even though it's commercial and how much or how little can an artist do to modify a piece and still call it art there's a video on this channel about

fountain and that's where you would get a much deeper dive into this idea of found art and then of course we have sense stimuli of course we can do things with sculpture that we can't do with painting for example we can or we can imagine

touch in sculpture much more easily than we can in painting because we're not used to touching two-dimensional things so you can touch sculpture and this also applies to the sense of touch within sculpture so for example this very famous example

of statuary where you see the fingers pressing into the thigh and you get a sense of a soft human form more so than a hard marble form and that would be describing touch within the piece it's not necessarily just

if you physically touch it what would it feel like it's sometimes how does the piece feel when you look at it so it's sort of a complicated issue how would it feel is it cold for example marble you would

imagine that would be cold even on a warm day wood like i showed you just earlier sorry wood like i showed you just earlier that's going to feel probably room temperature maybe a hair bit warm so you can describe that you can

describe how the touch seems to appear within the piece as we do with the hand there's a number of different directions you can go with this but of course let me remind you do not touch sculptures or it tends to

end fairly poorly then we have temperature now warm and cool tones as i talked about in the understanding two-dimensional art video warm and cool tones affect the idea of temperature for example we see a blue a red and a

yellow statue here you would expect the blue one your brain sort of expects that to be colder than the red one the red one's going to have a warmer feel even though we know they're the same material they're in the same place

logically they should feel exactly the same but you will read into that also a wood sculpture for example will give you a sense of a warmer temperature than say a marble statue and you can talk about that now you

wouldn't use all of these describers in every sculpture that would probably drive you mad what you're doing is you're picking these different elements as they apply to a specific piece that you're looking at whichever ones best apply to whatever the sculpture is we also

have the question of age now weathering can give sculpture a sense of time as we see on easter island on the right and age can also affect our emotional response to a work something that looks older is going to

give us a sense of antiquity it's going to give us a sense of things before it tends to make us think about the past whereas something very new as we see on the left doesn't have that and it doesn't mean

that that artist doesn't want us thinking about time etc he may just be going in a different direction so creating a sense of age whether it's artificial or real is something that you read into in a sculpture because it's going to affect how you

look at how you understand it and how you interpret it then we have dynamics basically we can get a sense of movement from a statue and of course we have dynamic and static statues just like we saw dynamic and

static art in two-dimensional so here on the left we see a piece uh known as rape of the sabine women although it's basically an attempt to depict uh the human form in a specific composition but it's a very

in a specific composition but it's a very dynamic image you can't look at it and not get a sense of movement especially as we have this sort of corkscrew that runs through it and then we have the woman trying to get

away the man trying to hold her the old man in a very awkward position beneath but it's very dynamic you can't look at and not get a sense of movement here we have a static image and remember when i talked about closed form i talked

about using religious imagery frequently as closed form or at least as something that isn't going to move you through here we have an image of jesus this i would argue can be both open and closed because of course

we have the hands pointing out but they're not pointing at anything there's nothing there and it depicts a common form for him seen on the cross or seen providing a blessing depending on the setting but here we have this very static form

he's unmoving this is going to be important in this religious context because i don't want the idea of jesus or a founder of a religion as being someone who's going to change and move an alter i want my religion founded on something solid

and immovable and so we tend to see static associated more with religious pieces and obviously they're going to be some variations to this depending on where you are and who the sculptor is etc size matters in sculpture when we look at size larger sculptures

have more mass and more impact but as you see on the left or sorry on the right and this is of course mount rushmore when the artist starts working in a larger form he will generally include less detail

because the grandeur of it takes over so larger sculptures will be less detailed if you look at teddy roosevelt there he looks pretty basic i mean there's a couple of lines for glasses there's a mustache but if you remove that and

change the hair he looks an awful lot like jefferson next to him or washington and jefferson could actually be swapped and you wouldn't know it lincoln's the only one that really looks a little bit different and even there take away the facial hair

and the hair and he can again be swapped in back and forth so when we're looking at massive sculpture we're not looking at detail we're looking at grandeur mass and size lighting can have a huge impact especially at night or in an

indoor setting because the way a sculpture is lit gives us a sense of color and as we know color can give us a sense of emotion blue being calming or sadness green envy or growth uh orange tends to be

energetic yellow happy red passionate or anger you get the idea so this can change how we read the piece this sculpture could be white in the middle of the day and we read it completely differently than we do at night when it's lit up in

multiple colors environment has another plays a role as well now of course it provides context this is why museums can be so harmful to understanding sculpture so here we see the ecstasy of saint teresa she's in this sort of dreamlike state and what she's

seeing in her vision is this angel of god about to thrust an arrow of love through her heart in a church we read this as a miracle because it's in a church and the environment plays in if however

i put this in a cornfield you would read this as an act of homicide maybe by a very attractive angel and you know rather overdone with all the marble and such but it becomes an act of homicide context

is important environment is important and so when we look at statues oftentimes we will try and look at them in their original environment or study them as if they were in their original environment whereas in other cases we

don't have that we don't know exactly what the environment was in modern terms oftentimes statues will be created with no environment and they can be put anywhere but it still would be read in to some degree you can't look at something and not

read the environment around it as important such as the frozen lake mendota statue of liberty so when you're looking at statuary whether it's massive stone statues whether it's tiny miniatures carved out at the tip of a pencil there are different rules and ideas

there's that sense of engineering that you always have to take into account you have to see sculptures somewhat more complex than drawing and painting architecture will be one step further adding to the complexity of these forms and when you look at statues when you

look at sculpture it's always going to be a mix of those compositional elements from the two-dimensional world and the new elements that apply to the three-dimensional world so things get more complicated as we move on but that's why i'm creating these so you

can hopefully have a better understanding of sculpture