THE ELEMENT EARTH (CLAY) IN CONSTANTIN BRANCUSI’S SCULPTURE
THE ELEMENT EARTH (CLAY) IN CONSTANTIN BRANCUSI’S SCULPTURE

Summary/Abstract: The modeling technique, a classical method necessary for pupils to get acquainted and express themselves in sculpture, requires an absolute working intimacy with the earth element (clay / plastic mud) through the direct contact of man with it in order to give shape to the subject. It is noteworthy that, from this period of Brâncuşi's training at Craiova School of Arts and Crafts, we can observe the pleasure with which he gives the voice to this earth through the busts he made at school during the sculpture classes. The modeling, this technique of continuous addition of shapes, until the artist is satisfied with the similarity and expression with the model, acquires in Brâncuşi's hands those sculptural attributes and valences of expressive forms capable of transmitting an aesthetic emotion. Until the appearance of the sculpture Sleep, which in terms of matter is totally different than the former type of art practiced by Brâncuşi, earthly matter, the clay, was the main means of configuration in sculpture, made by modeling in earth. In the works The Kiss and Wisdom of the Earth, he will abandon modeling in favor of harsh tellurian materials, which even contain the memory of the world, and whom the artist through the new technique bring to profoundly spiritualized forms in which the model disappears, the idea becoming the primary significance

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