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Course: Modernisms 1900-1980 > Unit 3
Lesson 5: The School of ParisBrancusi, Bird in Space
Constantin Brancusi, Bird in Space, bronze, limestone, wood, 1928 (MoMA) Speakers: Dr. Steven Zucker, Dr. Beth Harris. Created by Beth Harris and Steven Zucker.
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What was Plato's Allegory of the Cave about? I somewhat remember something about forms. But I'm not sure how it relates to abstract art though I know they do.(12 votes)
In the allegory of the cave plato creates an analogy between our everyday experience of life and these prisoners who have only ever experienced the shadows reflected on the wall before them. These prisoners, the full range of their experience having only ever been of these shadows, take the shadows to be reality. Likewise, we take our limited experiences and sensory inputs to constitute the whole of reality, and we mist the higher reality hidden just beyond our view. Our material world, according to Plato, is a reflection (a degraded representation) of a higher reality--A reality which consist of these kind of ideal forms (platonic forms) (Which I think might also be derived from an even higher unitary form which he likens to the sun (only metaphorically). What exactly the nature of these forms is is hard to say--I believe that during the Renaissance and the Enlightenment platonic forms were often compared to fundamental principles and laws of nature, which are eternal and unchanging yet determine the nature of reality in very direct and fundamental ways. In high modernism these platonic ideals continue to have their effect--as is arguably evinced in the Bauhaus' search for ideal, geometric utilitarian forms that would transform society; as well as Mondrian's unrelenting search for a singular form of harmonious expression.(28 votes)
- Why is it that something so simple can be so strangely beautiful?(5 votes)
- I agree. The gold piece of art looks like a high class piece of work although it is so simple.(3 votes)
I like that instead of making an actual sculpture of a bird, Brancusi creates the motion of something that flies as a representation.(3 votes)- He says at1:13of the video that "it is a literal since. It is the representation of the thing that birds do that we love." What does he mean by that?(1 vote)
- I think he means that because the work of art looks very gentle and and like a feather of a bird, it reminds us of a bird and how peaceful they look flying in the air.(3 votes)
- Does it matter if the pedestal is part of the sculpture? Is it really important?(1 vote)
a pedestal is to a sculpture as a frame to a picture. Unframe a picture, and it looks different, even deficient, on the wall. In the previous unit on art in Germany between the wars it was noted that in the show of degenerate art in Munich, the pictures that the Nazis didn't like were displayed unframed as a way of making them look crude. The pedestal is important to the sculpture.(3 votes)
What is this? A feather? A tree branch?(0 votes)- I love your question because it reminds me of the same kind of experience I had with it. When I first saw pictures of the sculpture, I experienced a similar confusion as to how Brancusi could have given it that name. It looked nothing like a bird to me. Years later, I saw a copy of it at the Norton Simon museum in Pasadena and was struck by the visual difference of walking around it and seeing it up close and personal. The proportions are such that it actually does resemble a bird in flight, on hyper-drive, arcing straight up. Seeing the real thing changed my thinking about it from "meh" to "wow!"(6 votes)
- This piece of art is very abstract and is so great because the artist lets the viewer interpret the art based on what they see.(2 votes)
i'm in 2016 and if any one sees this in from along time from now please comment. its crazy seeing peoples comments from like 4 years ago. peace...(1 vote)- we are a community of learners, learning from each other. The "older" comments, showing how people have reacted in the past, guide us in our own reactions. The "old" questions may be our own contemporary ones, and someone's "old" response may be just the one we need now.(1 vote)
- Is there significance in the different materials used to make the complete collection? (bronze, limestone, wood)(1 vote)
I don't know much about materials but there is a kind of Ascension from denser to more refined. The industrial modernism of that time was transforming (still is) transforming the earth. This despite its artificiality, in this case leads to greater refinement. It is almost as if the metal itself is not the final piece of the sculpture, as the sculpture becomes movement itself and then light.(1 vote)
- He's talking about 'he was a Romanian' like about something unusual. ROMANIANS were GREAT people too, in arts, science, engineering and lots of fields, and they have done and still do GREAT things(1 vote)
1:13Video transcript
[background music] We're in the Museum of Modern Art and we're looking at Constantin Brancusi's "Bird in Space" from 1928. Brancusi was a Romanian who worked for almost his entire career in Paris. He worked in lots of media and often pushed the materials to really new expressions. This is bronze. It's bronze. It's been highly polished. So it looks like gold... But it's not just bronze, because for Brancusi the pedestal was part of the sculpture. And it's got a stone pedestal. It's got limestone below that and very often you'd see a wooden pedestal even below that creating a hierarchy of materials what he considered the most primitive to the most industrial. It's kind of a Neoplatonic idea of ascending from the material up to the immaterial. I think that's exactly right. The reflectivity of the bronze drives that point home. It is really about light and movement, right? This is not a sculpture that is in any way a literal depiction of a bird, it's a depiction of this gentle organic arching of this soaring figure. It's not a bird in so much as a representation of the thing that birds to that we love. As one moves around it and looks at it, the light that reflects on it shifts and changes and flickers, so it does have a sense of something almost kinetic. As if it were moving and soaring, but it's not a propulsion that seems mechanical, even though it's metal and we see it as an industrial material. There's a great story about this sculpture. This was included in a famous 1936 exhibition at MoMA called "Cubism and Abstract Art" and when this came over from France, the customs agents kept it and wouldn't let it out. Why? Because MoMA was claiming it is a work of art and they didn't believe it. This is 1936 and they thought it had some industrial use and therefore could be taxed and MoMA said "No, it's a work of art, it should not be taxed" and it was actually held in. There was a court case about it. But what purpose could this possibly serve? If I remember correctly the papers suggested it may be a propeller or a piece of a propeller. It does really speak to the radicality - which I think we forget - of just how abstract this is. It doesn't really in some ways look so abstract. It does suggest flight and upward movement and we're used to things suggesting things like that. [background music]