Spotlight On: Constantin Brancusi

What my work is aiming at is, above all, realism. I pursue the inner, hidden reality, the very essence of objects in their own intrinsic fundamental nature; this is my only deep preoccupation.

-          Constantin Brancusi [1]

Upon first viewing sculptures like Bird in Space (figure 1) and Princess X (figure 2) appear deeply, wonderfully, incongruous and yet somehow, beguilingly, apt. They bear no representational resemblance to their titles, defying any expectation of what a bird or a princess should look like. These radical forms spring from the mind and hands of one of the 20th century’s most influential sculptors, French-Romanian Constantin Brancusi, a founding artist of Modernism whose abstracted forms shaped the principles of reductive and non-representational art.

Brancusi’s sculptures marked a bold departure from the academic traditions and the life-like, representational work of his contemporaries in pursuit of his famous guiding principle to reveal through sculpture the very essence of a thing. The artist enjoyed quoting French poet Nicolas Boileau: “rien n’est beau que la vrai” – nothing is beautiful except that which is true.[2] Deeply simplified, Brancusi’s sculptures speak to a deeper reading of truth and connect to layer beyond the visage, striking the soul of a thing. His intriguing shapes, given form in marble, wood, stone and bronze, are instantly iconic, and has inspired numerous sculptors including Richard Serra as well as Isamu Noguchi, who was his studio assistant in 1927.[3]

Figure 3.

Brancusi was born in 1876 in rural Romania. As a child he carved wooden farm tools and at the young age of eleven Brancusi left home to study sculpture, first in Craiova and then in Bucharest and Munich. The artist’s talent shone throughout his schooling, and he moved to Paris in 1904 to study in this cultural hub at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts. In Paris, Brancusi established his studio and immersed himself in avant-garde art circles, becoming friendly with Marcel Duchamp, Henri Matisse, Amedeo Modigliani, and Henri Rousseau. In his studio he would make films with Man Ray, activating his works through movement, light and rearrangement.[4]

In 1907 Brancusi worked in the workshop of the highly regarded sculptor Auguste Rodin as his assistant, but this was short-lived with Brancusi stating, “Nothing can grow under big trees.”[5] Brancusi’s sculpture The Kiss (1916) is an apt representation of the more abstract style that called the artist to separate himself from more traditional schools, being worlds away from the emotive realism of Rodin's work of the same subject. In Brancusi’s hands the two lovers are made into a blocky portrait highlighting their embrace. Unified, pressed together and in every way connected to one another the fundamental shapes of their bodies speak to the basic humanity of their embrace.

Figure 4.

This work, The Kiss, also shows Brancusi’s interest in the forms and spirituality of African, Assyrian, and Egyptian art and exemplifies his more “primitive” methods of sculpting through direct carving. Brancusi shaped each of his works individually, rather than using casts or clay models, so that all his sculptures would bear the mark of the artist’s hands and tools. This process kept true to his broader rejection of ‘copying’, the artist stating, “A thing which would pretend to reproduce nature would only be a copy.”[6] Brancusi saw his work as rising above such pretence and thus a truth to appearance, the physical story of work contained in each piece, was of crucial importance.

It was not only in his art that Brancusi ran counterpoint to contemporary styles, but also in his own presentation. Throughout his life the artist cultivated the image of an outsider, a peasant, in his appearance, wearing sandals and a long beard.[7] He also continued to draw inspiration not only from traditional works but from Romanian mythology and folklore, as exemplified in his series of works, Maiastra (master, in Brancusi’s native Romanian).[8]

Figure 5.

In these works, made from 1910-18, Brancusi depicted the figure of a spectacular magical golden bird taken from a Romanian folk tale. The shape of the bird is simplified with an emphasis on it’s a proud puffed chest and open beak. High on bronze bases the birds perch proudly, luminously reflective and mystical figures. Another of Brancusi’s famous works exploring the form of birds, Bird in Space is even more reductive so that what is captured is a dynamic sensation of sky-bound motion, upwards life – “the essence of flight”.[9]

Sitting on the cutting edge of what art could be it is unsurprising that Brancusi was no stranger to notoriety. In 1920 his entry in the Salon, the boldly phallic work Princess X, was removed from exhibition and in 1927 his work was the subject of an historic trial, judging if Bird in Space was liable for duty either as a manufactured object or indeed a work of art (in the following year the sculpture was ultimately ruled as art).[10]

Figure 6.

In his later career Brancusi made a series of large-scale World War I monuments in Târgu-Jiu, where he had spent much of his childhood. Table of Silence, The Gate of the Kiss, and Endless Column commemorate the courage and sacrifice of Romanians who in 1916 defended Târgu Jiu from the forces of the Central Powers.[11] This final large-scale project embodies the concerns most essential to Brancusi’s art: the idealization of aesthetic form, the integration of architecture, sculpture, and furniture and the physical evocation of spiritual thought. After his last work was made, Brancusi spent his last years making sculptural groupings in his studio, a project that epitomized his interest in creating dynamic dialogues among various works and the spaces they inhabit.

Article researched and written by: Amy Thomson de Zylva BA (Hons)

Learn More:

To learn more about the man who is thought of as the ‘patriarch of modern sculpture’:

Click here to read a discussion by the NGA about Bird in Space.

View Brancusi works in the Guggenheim collection here.

Watch and read about a retrospective of the artist held at MoMA.

View footage of the series of works made by Brancusi at Targu Jiu here.

Image captions:

Figure 1: Bird in Space (1923) courtesy of WikiArt.

Figure 2: Princess X (1916) courtesy of WikiArt.

Figure 3: Portrait of Constantin Brancusi by Edward Steichen (1922) courtesy Wikipedia.

Figure 4: The Kiss (1912) courtesy of WikiArt.

Figure 5: Maiastra (1913) courtesy of Wikipedia.

Figure 6: Table of Silence (1907) courtesy of WikiArt.

 Footnotes:

1. IdeelArt.com. “The Delicate Beauty of Constantin Brâncuși’s Bird in Space | Ideelart.” Accessed May 2021.

2. Macholz, Kaitlin. “How Constantin Brancusi Brazenly Redefined Sculpture.” Artsy, July 20, 2018.

3. Ibid.

4. The Museum of Modern Art. “Constantin Brancusi Sculpture | MoMA.” Accessed May 2021.

5. The Guggenheim Museums and Foundation. “The Guggenheim Museums and Foundation.” Accessed May 2021.

6. Miller, Sanda. “Brancusi’s women.” Apollo, (March 2007), 56 – 63.

7. The Museum of Modern Art. “Constantin Brancusi Sculpture | MoMA.” Accessed May 2021.

8. “International Paintings and Sculpture | L’oiseau Dans l’espace [Bird in Space].” Accessed May 2021.

9. Ibid.

10. Miller, Sanda. “Brancusi’s women.” Apollo, (March 2007), 60.

11. The Guggenheim Museums and Foundation. “The Guggenheim Museums and Foundation.” Accessed May 2021.