Lot Essay
In Le Pentacle, Richier condenses a sense of tragedy and of martydom in a single human form. A large body with a heavy torso and broad neck stands petrified in a rather military pose. Richier has delicately carved concentric circles into the belly and the back of the figure. The incisions are not violently executed but meticulously deep, like cuttings into human flesh, particularly pronounced in the neck area.
The figure gives the impression that it is struggling to keep its head from falling off and this is emphasised by the strength in the arms. The skull itself is like one great wound. A deep cut splits the skull at the top. A cyclop's eye takes prominent position on the face. It is a hollow area directly eating into the devastated brain.
This brutal treatment of the human figure as an expression of human suffering is also seen in the work of other French artists of the period such as Fautrier and Dubuffet. The concern about re-inventing the human figure as a contemporary idiom was already apparent, not only in Fautrier's sculptures, but also in his famous Otages series.
Richier's choice of title for the present sculpture has a sense of irony. A pentacle for mathematicians is a geometric star-like shape, while for ancient civilisations it was identified as the symbol of perfection. It is rather comic therefore that a hideous figure with a wounded face, and an abnormal body can be labelled with this title. However, Richier was an artist who could find beauty in the most repulsive insects. Her tender and sympathetic treatment of this sculpture allows one to believe in the perfection of its soul despite its physically deformed state.
The figure gives the impression that it is struggling to keep its head from falling off and this is emphasised by the strength in the arms. The skull itself is like one great wound. A deep cut splits the skull at the top. A cyclop's eye takes prominent position on the face. It is a hollow area directly eating into the devastated brain.
This brutal treatment of the human figure as an expression of human suffering is also seen in the work of other French artists of the period such as Fautrier and Dubuffet. The concern about re-inventing the human figure as a contemporary idiom was already apparent, not only in Fautrier's sculptures, but also in his famous Otages series.
Richier's choice of title for the present sculpture has a sense of irony. A pentacle for mathematicians is a geometric star-like shape, while for ancient civilisations it was identified as the symbol of perfection. It is rather comic therefore that a hideous figure with a wounded face, and an abnormal body can be labelled with this title. However, Richier was an artist who could find beauty in the most repulsive insects. Her tender and sympathetic treatment of this sculpture allows one to believe in the perfection of its soul despite its physically deformed state.