Artist:
Henry Moore
Title:
Standing Figure: Knife Edge
Year:
1961
Adress:
Solow Building
www.henry-moore.org:
The origins of Moore’s evocation of the spirit of the famous Winged Victory of Samothrace could hardly have been more prosaic. Yet the simple principle of visualising a completed – indeed monumental – work from a fragment of natural material was unquestionably one of the sculptor’s strong points. In this case he simply added a base and head of plasticine to a piece of chicken bone before enlarging it in three stages. The largest version has become the best known, particularly in dramatic settings where the extreme contrast of breadth and thinness in the figure interacts with the panorama to sublime effect, while perspective changes as the viewer moves around it.
The origins of Moore’s evocation of the spirit of the famous Winged Victory of Samothrace could hardly have been more prosaic. Yet the simple principle of visualising a completed – indeed monumental – work from a fragment of natural material was unquestionably one of the sculptor’s strong points. In this case he simply added a base and head of plasticine to a piece of chicken bone before enlarging it in three stages. The largest version has become the best known, particularly in dramatic settings where the extreme contrast of breadth and thinness in the figure interacts with the panorama to sublime effect, while perspective changes as the viewer moves around it.