CONSTANTIN BRANCUSI

Constantin Brancusi is one of the greatest of all sculptors, and a key sculptor of the modern era, with Auguste Rodin and Pablo Picasso. Brancusi's influence can be seen in a wide range of Western sculptors, including Donald Judd, Carl Andre, Henry Moore, Jean Arp, Barbara Hepworth, Minimalists and land artists.

This new book studies the religious and mythical dimensions of Constantin Brancusi's distinctive scultpural forms, the 'eggs', 'fishes', 'heads' and 'columns'. His central quest was for the 'essence of things', which resulted in purifying a form until only the essence was left.

It was Constantin Brancusi's project to strip away the detritus that had accumulated around sculpture, Henry Moore said, and to offer the pure, simple shape. What Brancusi did was 'to concentrate on very simple shapes, to keep his sculpture, as it were, one-cylindered, to refine and polish a single shape to a degree almost too precious.'

As well as being a sculptor, Constantin Brancusi was also an accomplished photographer. Quite a few artists (not all of them sculptors) have expressed for Brancusi's photographs, and the way he would set up his sculptures inhis studio and photograph them at particular times of the day, when the lightingwas just right. They are early examples of installation art (and some of the best, too). Andy Goldsworthy said he admired how Brancusi created the right conditions in his studio so that his work 'comes alive at a particular time of the day as the light momentarily touches it'. For Goldsworthy, Brancusi's works were at their best when they were arranged by the sculptor in his studio and photographed. Somehow, it wasn't quite the same when they were displayed in modern art museums (such as the Pompidou Centre in Paris or the Museum of Modern Art in Gotham, which have important Brancusi pieces).

Fully illustrated, including many photos of Brancusi's studio in Paris, Brancusi's works in museums in New York, Washington and L.A., and the art of his contemporaries.

With bibliography and notes. ISBN 9781861713391. 180 pages.

This new (4th) edition has been revised.

www.crmoon.com

AUTHOR'S NOTE: The art of Constantin Brancusi never ceases to fascinate and inspire, and it always seems fresh, as if it had been created fives minutes ago, no matter how many times you look at it. When you encounter a Brancusi sculpture in a museum, it pops out, clear and direct; there is simply nothing else like Brancusi's art in history. I have tried to explore the key elements of Brancusi's art, and the important events in his development as a sculptor. I have also included comparisons with other artists of the period, and also how Brancusi's art has influenced many subsequent artists.

Arguably the greatest sculptor of all time, Donatello (c.1386-1466) was at the vanguard of a revolution in sculptural practice in the early Renaissance. Combining ideas from classical and medieval sculpture to create innovative sculptural forms, Donatello had an unparalleled ability to portray emotions in works intended to inspire spiritual devotion. Pieces such as the penitent St Mary Magdalene and the bronze of David remain deeply affecting to audiences today. Working in marble, bronze, wood, terracotta and stucco, he contributed to major commissions of church and state; was an intimate of the Medici family and their circle in Florence, and highly sought after in other Italian cities. This book, specially commissioned to accompany the 2023 exhibition at the V&A, explores Donatello's extraordinary creativity within the vibrant artistic and cultural context of fifteenth-century Italy, surveying his early connection with goldsmiths' work and the collaborative nature of his workshop and processes. It also reflects on Donatello's legacy, reviewing how his sculpture inspired subsequent generations in the later Renaissance and beyond.

Formed in 1995 Cv/Visual Arts Research is a documentary resource of developments in contemporary art. The survey began in April 1988, and was first published as the quarterly review "Cv Journal of Art and Crafts" (later "Cv Journal of the Arts"). Cv was produced until 1992 and the collection of interviews, features and reviews provided the foundation of the Cv/VAR archive and subsequent publications. Following Cv Journal the data-base shifted towards electronic publishing, allowing a greater flexibility of communication. "Cv/VAR" addresses the fields of academic research, galleries and museums worldwide, and a growing non-specialist readership. In this respect the archive has been re-organised as a file system which may be accessed as individual articles or collated volumes, according to specific requirements. The programme is categorized as Interviews with the Artists (files 1-8); Curators and Collections (files 9/10); Crafts Directory (files 11/12); Small Histories (files 13/14); Guide to the Arts (files 15/16); Art, Criticism and Display (files 17/18 and an open area for current developments (files 19/20). "Cv/VAR Volume 47" documents an interview with the French sculptor Arman, exploring his early connections with Yves Klein, Rosicricianism, and the development of auto-formed sculptures of collected objects.

Stone statues, indigenous to the early Turks, appeared in the vast territory of the Asian steppes, from Southern Siberia to Central Asia and across the foothills of the Ural Mountains. The custom originated among Cumans in Eastern Europe. The skill of erecting anthropomorphic stelae required proficiency in processing different kinds of stone and wood, and was characterized by artistic value of representations, as well as by the timeless aesthetics of the canon. The author presents the results of her formative studies into the collection of the Cuman sculptures of the Veliko-Anadol Forest Museum, Ukraine. The book delves into the history of research on Cuman stone stelae, resulting in great reading for all archeologists and historians alike.

For the first time, the 92-metre frieze of the Voortrekker Monument in Pretoria, one of the largest historical narratives in marble, has been made the subject of a book.

The pictorial narrative of the Boer pioneers who conquered South Africa’s interior during the ‘Great Trek’ (1835-1852) represents a crucial period of South Africa’s past. Forming the concept of the frieze both reflected on and contributed to the country’s socio-political debates in the 1930s and 1940s when it was made. The frieze is unique in that it provides rare evidence of the complex processes followed in creating a major monument.

Based on unpublished documents, drawings and models, these processes are unfolded step by step, from the earliest discussions of the purpose and content of the frieze through all the stages of its design to its shipping to post-war Italy to be copied into marble and final installation in the Monument. The book examines how visual representation transforms historical memory in what it chooses to recount, and the forms in which it depicts this. It also investigates the active role the Monument played in the development of apartheid, and its place in post-apartheid heritage.

The second volume, to be published later this year, expands on the first, considering each of the twenty-seven scenes in depth, providing new insights into not only the frieze, but also South Africa’s history.

Cv/VAR 101 documents a commissioned sculpture by Anish Kapoor for the Monumenta series at Grand Palais, Paris. An initial presentation by the artist at his London studio in March,with curators Jean de Loisy and Mark Sanchez, describes the project, with reference to scale models, plus a discussion of the 'Orbit Tower' in process for the 2012 Olympics. Visits 'Leviathan' installed at the Grand Palais in May.

An electrifying story of passion, connection and transformation from 'a writer of show-stopping genius' (Guardian). 'Dark and brilliant.' SARAH MOSS 'A masterpience.' DAISY JOHNSON 'Extraordinary.' SARAH PERRY 'Hall has set a bar . . . Finely wrought, intellecutally brave and emotionally honest.' THE SCOTSMAN In the bedroom above her immense studio at Burntcoat, the celebrated sculptor Edith Harkness is making her final preparations. The symptoms are well known: her life will draw to an end in the coming days. Downstairs, the studio is a crucible glowing with memories and desire. It was here, when the first lockdown came, that she brought Halit. The lover she barely knew. A presence from another culture. A doorway into a new and feverish world. 'Sarah Hall makes language shimmer and burn . . . One of the finest writers at work today.' DAMON GALGUT 'Wonderful . . . The writing goes down smoking hot onto the page.' ANDREW MILLER 'I can think of no other British writer whose talent so consistently thrills, surprises and staggers . . . With Burntcoat she has solidified her status as the literary shining light we lesser souls aspire to.' BENJAMIN MYERS

The Lives of Chinese Objectsis a fascinating book. It is the result of excellent historical research as well as curatorial expertise. The reader is taken on an amazing journey starting with the startling discovery of the image of five Chinese bronzes on display as part of the Great Exhibition in 1851...The stories uncovered are riveting, a mix of curatorial detail and description, historical research and theoretical analysis. This book is beautifully written - clear, detailed and informative. The author is ever present in the text and the book is as much a story of her journey, as it is a story of the lives of the 'Putuo Five'. I just wanted to keep reading." . Suzanne MacLeod, University of Leicester

This is the biography of a set of rare Buddhist statues from China. Their extraordinary adventures take them from the Buddhist temples of fifteenth-century Putuo - China's most important pilgrimage island - to their seizure by a British soldier in the First Opium War in the early 1840s, and on to a starring role in the Great Exhibition of 1851. In the 1850s, they moved in and out of dealers' and antiquarian collections, arriving in 1867 at Liverpool Museum. Here they were re-conceptualized as specimens of the 'Mongolian race' and, later, as examples of Oriental art. The statues escaped the bombing of the Museum during the Second World War and lived out their existence for the next sixty years, dismembered, corroding and neglected in the stores, their histories lost and origins unknown.

As the curator of Asian collections at Liverpool Museum, the author became fascinated by these bronzes, and selected them for display in the Buddhism section of the World Cultures gallery. In 2005, quite by chance, the discovery of a lithograph of the figures on prominent display in the Great Exhibition enabled the remarkable lives of these statues to be reconstructed.

This book investigates how British contemporary artists who work with clay have managed, in the space of a single generation, to take ceramics from niche-interest craft to the pristine territories of the contemporary art gallery. This development has been accompanied (and perhaps propelled) by the kind of critical discussion usually reserved for the 'higher' discipline of sculpture. Ceramics is now encountering and colliding with sculpture, both formally and intellectually. Laura Gray examines what this means for the old hierarchies between art and craft, the identity of the potter, and the character of a discipline tied to a specific material but wanting to participate in critical discussions that extend far beyond clay.

In the past decade, there has been a surge of Anglophone scholarship regarding Spain in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, which has led to a reframing of the discourses around Spanish culture of this period. Despite this new interest-in which painting, in particular, has been singled out for treatment-a comprehensive study of sculpture collections and the status of sculpture in Spain has yet to be produced. Sculpture Collections in Early Modern Spain is the first book to assess the phenomenon of sculpture collecting and in doing so, it alters the previously held notion that Spanish society placed little value in this art form. Di Dio and Coppel reveal that, due to the problems and expense of their transport from Italy, sculptures were in fact status symbols in the culture. Thus they were an important component of the collections formed by the royal family, cultivated noble collectors, humanists, and artists who had pretensions of high status. This book is especially useful to specialists for its discussion of the typologies of collections and objects, and of the mechanics of state gifts, transport, and collection display in this period. An appendix presents extensive archival documentation, most of which has never before been published. The authors have uncovered hundreds of new documents about sculpture in Spain; and new documentary evidence allows them to propose several new identifications and attributions. Firmly grounded in extensive archival research, Sculpture Collections in Early Modern Spain redefines the socio-political and art historical importance of sculpture in early modern Spain. Most importantly, it entirely transforms our knowledge regarding the presence of sculpture in a wide range of Spanish collections of the period, which until now has been erroneously characterized as close to non-existent.

A comprehensive study of modern sculpture developments in Great Britain, this beautiful and important new book showcases 95 leading sculptors from the second half of the 20th century. Chronologically arranged to show the influences that touched each of the artists lives, it concentrates on the most influential, award-winning, and highly valued works from the growing field of popular sculpture available today. The artists themselves selected most of the pieces to represent their own work and are liberally quoted with personal statements to interpret their work for the readers. 780 color and black and white photographs display the wide range of materials, themes, styles, and settings that convey each individual sculptors own classical, figurative, abstract, or visionary work. \nA history of the Royal Society of British Sculpture (RBS), by the organizations current president, sets forth the purpose and results of this prestigious group today. Essays on the St Ives group of the 1940s and figurative sculpture of the 1950s put the growing sculpture movement in Britain into perspective. From them sprang several generations of influential sculptors whose work challenges current sculptors to push the bounds of artistic expression. They must create, and they do, in countless original ways. The growing popularity of sculpture parks in Britain is currently influencing new sculpture parks all over the world. The exciting images and wealth of specific information contained here will continue to shape the art market for generations to come.

This beautifully illustrated reference work is the only source of information on American women sculptors as a group. Virginia Watson-Jones presents the accomplishments of more than 350 contemporary American women sculptors through photographs of their major works and detailed information about their lives and careers. For each artist information is provided on her birthplace and birth year, education, preferred media, major exhibitions, location of work in public collections, awards, selected private collectors, professional interests other than sculpture, teaching position (if applicable), and mailing address. Each entry also includes a statement by the sculptor and her signature.

The first book to devote serious attention to questions of scale in contemporary sculpture, this study considers the phenomenon within the interlinked cultural and socio-historical framework of the legacies of postmodern theory and the growth of global capitalism. In particular, the book traces the impact of postmodern theory on concepts of measurement and exaggeration, and analyses the relationship between this philosophy and the sculptural trend that has developed since the early 1990s. Rachel Wells examines the arresting international trend of sculpture exploring scale, including American precedents from the 1970s and 1980s and work by the 'Young British Artists'. Noting that the emergence of this sculptural trend coincides with the end of the Cold War, Wells suggests a similarity between the quantitative ratio of scale and the growth of global capitalism that has replaced the former status quo of qualitatively opposed systems. This study also claims the allegorical nature of scale in contemporary sculpture, outlining its potential for critique or complicity in a system dominated by quantitative criteria of value. In a period characterised by uncertainty and incommensurability, Wells demonstrates that scale in contemporary sculpture can suggest the possibility of, and even an unashamed reliance upon, comparison and external difference in the construction of meaning.

Richly illustrated, Early Gothic Column-Figure Sculpture in France is a comprehensive investigation of church portal sculpture installed between the 1130s and the 1170s. At more than twenty great churches, beginning at the Royal Abbey of Saint-Denis and extending around Paris from Provins in the east, south to Bourges and Dijon, and west to Chartres and Angers, larger than life-size statues of human figures were arranged along portal jambs, many carved as if wearing the dress of the highest ranks of French society. This study takes a close look at twelfth-century human figure sculpture, describing represented clothing, defining the language of textiles and dress that would have been legible in the twelfth-century, and investigating rationale and significance. The concepts conveyed through these extraordinary visual documents and the possible motivations of the patrons of portal programs with column-figures are examined through contemporaneous historical, textual, and visual evidence in various media. Appendices include analysis of sculpture production, and the transportation and fabrication in limestone from Paris. Janet Snyder's new study considers how patrons used sculpture to express and shape perceived reality, employing images of textiles and clothing that had political, economic, and social significances.

The Millennium Clock first chimed on 1 January 2000 and crowds still gather round it in the National Museum of Scotland. The finished clock tower echoes the form of a medieval cathedral, standing just over ten metres high. It marks the passing of time but is also a summary of the best and worst of the twentieth century. The animated construction comprises four sections: The Crypt, The Nave, The Belfry and The Spire. Each has its own stories to tell and secrets to reveal. This edition is in a new format and has 12 superb replacement photographs which give close-ups of some of the clock's intricate details. The clock tower is a collaboration between E Bersudsky, A Sandstrom, T Stead and J Tubbecke.