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| Jacques Lipchitz Painters and sculptors are two decidedly different types of people. Oh,
from time to time, painters may "play" with three-dimensional forms of some
kind, and it's not unheard of for a sculptor to dabble and daub in paint,
sometimes even slapping a little of the stuff on some of his sculptural work,
but by and large, in art history, there is very little successful crossover.
Picasso did both, but then Picasso did it all. Ditto for Michelangelo. And a few
painters, such as Leonardo and Degas, had their sculptural work made out to be
ever so much more than it really was on account of their painting proficiency.
Perhaps with this in mind, one early twentieth-century artist went so far as to
claim there was no difference between painting and sculpture. His name was
Jacques Lipchitz.
Lipchitz was
born in 1891, a Lithuanian who came to Paris in 1909. Given the timing of his
arrival in the art capital of the world at the time, he could scarcely have
helped but be influenced by Picasso and Cubism. However, he seemed little
effected by Picasso's analytic period, but instead gravitated toward the
synthetic element as Picasso moved from taking apart masses into reconfiguring
them. Lipchitz's Still Life with Musical Instruments carved in stone,
would seem to be a direct, sculptural counterpart to either of Picasso's
Three Musicians.
Despite their differences, sculptors are often
influenced by painters, as was Lipchitz. Art movements more often than not have
their beginnings in paint. Lipchitz seems to have been of the opinion that
anything anyone can paint, he could sculpt. Some of his later work is much less
Cubistic, such as his Figure, a massive, seven-foot-tall bronze now in
the Museum of Modern Art in New York. Still, there is the mark of Picasso in his
later years indelibly stamped upon it. Though Picasso obviously didn't need one
(he had enough of his own), Lipchitz seems to have been his sculptural
alter-ego. What Lipchitz seems to have meant in claiming there was "no
difference" in painting and sculpture, was not in the formal, literal sense, but
figuratively speaking, from a creative point of view. What he was saying is that
in conceiving a work of art the difference between painting and sculpture is
merely one of choosing a favourite medium--nothing more.Contributed by Lane, Jim
2 August 1999 |
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