“The modern sculptor is a man who works with instinct as his inspiring force. His work is emotional. The shape of a leg, or the curve of an eyebrow, etc., etc., have to him no significance whatsoever ; light voluptuous modelling is to him insipid—what he feels he does so intensely and his work is nothing more nor less than the abstraction of this intense feeling, with the result that sterile men of Auceps' kind are frightened at the production. That this sculpture has no relation to classic Greek, but that it is continuing the tradition of the barbaric peoples of the earth (for whom we have sympathy and admiration) I hope to have made clear.
(https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b5/Gaudier-Brzeska%3B_a_memoir_%28IA_gaudierbrzeskame00poun%29.pdf)
Henri Gaudier-Brzeska
I think I've struggled for so long because what I've done is exactly what I've planned to do. I set out goals and achieved them, the problem was I set out the wrong goals for my tastes. I’ve found my work to be cold and stilted because I set my goals to repeat and represent the form of a figure. And by centering the form I dispossessed the emotion. I can replicate form, I know that. I’ve studied anatomy and I can understand a figure's body as well as I understand my own. What interests me about art, is the extension of emotion into a material medium. I need to make that my goal and therefore I need to define my process by this.
Unconfirmed process IDEA---- 27/09/2023
1. Get image of human form in expressionistic pose (could source others or photograph myself)
2. Paint the pose in really simple movements (thick expressive painted brushstrokes)
3. Use this drawing to create a form, remember to follow the lines most importantly, you can always fill in details later (toes, face, get the form and movement right and the details will add not subtract.
