Thursday 21 May 2009

Henry Moore
With the figure’s broad hips and swelling breasts and abdomen, Moore gives this sculpture a strongly feminine character, full of ripe fertility. It holds a strong resemblance to the Willendorf Venus, an ancient limestone figurine Moore greatly admired that was carved around 23,000 BC. However, Moore drew on very varied visual sources of inspiration for his sculpture, both human and animal. He compared Three-Quarter Figure to a hippopotamus.

Click on the link below:
https://www.tate.org.uk/servlet/ViewWork?cgroupid=999999961&workid=10258&searchid=10080&tabview=image

Tuesday 12 May 2009

Welcome to my blog!
Subject:Art

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Little Dancer Aged Fourteen 1880-1, cast circa 1922
The model for this sculture was a girl named Marie Van Goethen, who was a pupil in the ballet class at the Opéra. As Charles W. Millard has pointed out, her identity is established by a drawing in the Louvre clearly done as a study for the sculpture which is annotated at the top, in the artist's hand, '36 rue de Douai Marie', coupled with the fact that Degas' notebook 2 (Reff 1880-1884) contains the address 'Marie Van Gutten 36 rue de Douai'. Marie Van Goethen (as her correct name seems to have been) was born in Paris on 17 February 1864, the daughter of a Belgian couple who were tailor and laundress. She was one of three sisters, all of whom were ballet students at the Opéra, and all of whom seem to have modelled for Degas.