Plaster art sculptures8/13/2023 A version in travertine marble was later carved in 1977, following an exhibition at the Serpentine Gallery, and was donated by Moore for a site in Kensington Gardens.Ī more subtle aspect of Moore’s work in plaster is discernible in his architectural reliefs comprising impressions of organic forms first pressed into clay and then united in a bed of plaster. For this the artist made a number of preparatory studies, using cut-out photographs of the plaster maquette and collaging them on various panoramic views to give a sense of scale. The Arch 1969 was originally made for the most celebrated solo exhibition held in Moore’s lifetime, at the dramatic Forte de Belvedere overlooking the city of Florence in 1972 (fig.3). 3 Moore also used fibreglass as a means to include very large works in temporary exhibitions, the material being lightweight and easily broken down into smaller sections for transport and re-erection elsewhere. The fibreglass works thus substituted for the plasters, and could provide a stark contrast to the bronzes on display in the grounds of his home in Perry Green, where they capture the early evening or low autumnal light. Similarly, he would paint fibreglass to mimic plaster, which is unsuitable to site in the open air. Photo: Henry Moore Foundation ArchiveRather than work with the cold white often associated with plaster, Moore usually coloured his work with walnut crystals to give the sculptures an organic warmth in keeping with the found objects, particularly animal bones, which were a major source of inspiration. In these works the string from the original plaster is carried over to create sectional ridges in the bronze. This was most effectively carried out with the plasters for Reclining Figure: Festival 1951 (fig.1) and Three Quarter Figure: Lines, 1980 (fig.2). These lines would then follow the undulations of the figure’s form, mapping its contours like an environmental survey. In other maquettes sectional lines, which more frequently appear in Moore’s drawings as a means of delineating form, are attempted in plaster, drawn directly onto the plaster to indicate the ridges that would be incised into a mould for the bronze enlargement. Occasionally Moore would make pencil drawings on the found object or the plaster in order to realise its transformation. Photo: Michel Muller, Henry Moore Foundation Archiveįocusing on the plasters reveals a fuller understanding of Moore’s working methods, in particular his use of this medium to transform found objects such as flint and bone directly into figures, questioning the relationship of man’s existence to the natural world. The vast majority of Moore’s plaster maquettes, where he tested out ideas, were never enlarged or cast in bronze, and despite their inventiveness, the plasters remain unrecorded in the six-volume catalogue raisonné of the artist’s sculpture. Moore himself was acutely aware of the psychological and aesthetic changes occurring in his sculptures once cast from plaster to bronze, and a number were only created in plaster. This often provides the sculpture with a more intense and disturbing quality, especially those plasters made in the immediate post-war era when artists like Moore were exploring tense and angular forms in his treatment of the figure. In plaster a sculpture’s surfaces can appear scarred – each incised line clearly marked – unlike the subtle patination of the bronzes with more unified surfaces. Their inherent fragility can allow more questioning of the vulnerability of the subjects depicted (in Moore’s case, mother and child, reclining figures, fallen warriors). They convey an immediacy unlike the bronzes, which are a stage removed. Yet these are the very objects that the artist created, textured with a variety of household tools and sometimes hand coloured. Until recently plasters made by sculptors have been seen as a means to an end rather than as works of art in their own right.
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