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Lot Essay
Sophie Bowness will include this work in the revised Barbara Hepworth catalogue raisonné as BH 219.
Among the most imposing sculptures in Hepworth's oeuvre are her "single" forms--tall, vertical works which evoke the grandeur and power of the standing human figure. This is especially true of the vertical forms Hepworth carved from wood (she did not begin to work in sheet metal or cast in bronze until 1956); these sculptures derive their strength and form from the very trees from which the wood was taken. "With wood," she told Alan Bowness, "you are always considering the whole growth, which is vertical" (quoted in A. Bowness, ed., The Complete Sculpture of Barbara Hepworth 1960-69, London, 1971, p. 8).
These columnar sculptures also derive from architectural elements. As any sculptor must, Hepworth had long appreciated the importance of the sculpture and architecture of the ancient civilizations around the Mediterranean. The primitive magical power of Greek kouroi, the sheer strength of temple columns and permanence of stelae infuse the modernity of her sculpture. She visited Greece, the Aegean and Cycladic islands for the first time in August 1954. J. P. Hodin has stated, "... The journey to Greece confirmed in her through direct and breathtaking experience the classical substance of her own imagination...." (in op. cit., p. 21).
Hepworth also took the inspiration from the soaring, ogival forms in Gothic architecture, which she studied in the great medieval cathedrals in England and France. In 1954 Hepworth executed a sculpture in painted limewood with strings she titled Stringed Figure (Gothic) (Hodin, no. 196). She extended the basic form in this sculpture to create Figure (Ascending Form), in which she rounded the top to complete an arch and suggest the shape of a head. She also carved out the lower portion near the base to give the figure the appearance of being firmly rooted on two legs. The twin apertures cut within the upper concave section, far from indicating negative space or the absence of mass, reinforce the verticality of the figure, and even suggest the presence of arms.
The use of string, with its suggestion of refinement and fragility, as well as its lack of corporeal weight, perhaps comes as a surprise in the context of this sturdy monolith. The function of the strings, as seen in many of the sculptor's most elegant works, is to suggest the complication of diagonal tension in the ascending form. The strings disrupt the insistent verticality of the carved wood, and draw the eye to the possibility of another dimension within it. This implied space is virtually transparent and insubstantial; it stems from the verticality of the form while appearing to exist apart from it. It appears to suggest the evolution of spirit or thought from matter. Hepworth told Hodin in 1959, "Today when we are all conscious of the expanding universe, the forms experienced by the sculptor should express this consciousness, but should, I feel, emphasize also the possibilities of new developments of the human spirit, so that it can affirm and continue life in its highest form" (quoted in ibid., p. 23).
Among the most imposing sculptures in Hepworth's oeuvre are her "single" forms--tall, vertical works which evoke the grandeur and power of the standing human figure. This is especially true of the vertical forms Hepworth carved from wood (she did not begin to work in sheet metal or cast in bronze until 1956); these sculptures derive their strength and form from the very trees from which the wood was taken. "With wood," she told Alan Bowness, "you are always considering the whole growth, which is vertical" (quoted in A. Bowness, ed., The Complete Sculpture of Barbara Hepworth 1960-69, London, 1971, p. 8).
These columnar sculptures also derive from architectural elements. As any sculptor must, Hepworth had long appreciated the importance of the sculpture and architecture of the ancient civilizations around the Mediterranean. The primitive magical power of Greek kouroi, the sheer strength of temple columns and permanence of stelae infuse the modernity of her sculpture. She visited Greece, the Aegean and Cycladic islands for the first time in August 1954. J. P. Hodin has stated, "... The journey to Greece confirmed in her through direct and breathtaking experience the classical substance of her own imagination...." (in op. cit., p. 21).
Hepworth also took the inspiration from the soaring, ogival forms in Gothic architecture, which she studied in the great medieval cathedrals in England and France. In 1954 Hepworth executed a sculpture in painted limewood with strings she titled Stringed Figure (Gothic) (Hodin, no. 196). She extended the basic form in this sculpture to create Figure (Ascending Form), in which she rounded the top to complete an arch and suggest the shape of a head. She also carved out the lower portion near the base to give the figure the appearance of being firmly rooted on two legs. The twin apertures cut within the upper concave section, far from indicating negative space or the absence of mass, reinforce the verticality of the figure, and even suggest the presence of arms.
The use of string, with its suggestion of refinement and fragility, as well as its lack of corporeal weight, perhaps comes as a surprise in the context of this sturdy monolith. The function of the strings, as seen in many of the sculptor's most elegant works, is to suggest the complication of diagonal tension in the ascending form. The strings disrupt the insistent verticality of the carved wood, and draw the eye to the possibility of another dimension within it. This implied space is virtually transparent and insubstantial; it stems from the verticality of the form while appearing to exist apart from it. It appears to suggest the evolution of spirit or thought from matter. Hepworth told Hodin in 1959, "Today when we are all conscious of the expanding universe, the forms experienced by the sculptor should express this consciousness, but should, I feel, emphasize also the possibilities of new developments of the human spirit, so that it can affirm and continue life in its highest form" (quoted in ibid., p. 23).