Tuesday, October 2, 2018

Relief Sculpture in the Modern Era (after 1800)

Joseph-Antoine Romagnési
Minerva protecting the young King of Rome
1811
painted plaster relief
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

Bertel Thorvaldsen
The Day
ca. 1815
marble relief
Harvard Art Museums

Bertel Thorvaldsen
The Night
ca. 1815
marble relief
Harvard Art Museums

John Gibson
Venus and Cupid
ca. 1839
marble relief
Victoria & Albert Museum
 
Heart's Desire

There it is, by heaven. Look.
No sacred star or rainbow
leads you to it. No path of crystal trees,
gruff ferryman with dripping oars,
or wise guide crouched in urchin guise.
No writing in any tongue on any wall.

At least here's proof it exists,
however unrecordably.
None of anyone's dreams did it justice.
The bonfires of expectancy
all these years had cast a chill,
and now you are warm,
getting warmer!

But please stand back to look your fill.
Your closer gaze would cause alarm,
or pierce, or char, or ossify.
Your sigh would be its chloroform.

Memorize the contours of its shadow,
the notes of silence it won't break.
Swoon at the scent it slyly withholds
like the night-blooming cereus
at noon.

– J. Allyn Rosser, from Mimi's Trapeze (University of Pittsburgh Press, 2014)

Thomas Eakins
Youth playing the pipes
1884
plaster relief
Philadelphia Museum of Art

Thomas Eakins
Pastoral
1883-84
plaster relief
Philadelphia Museum of Art

Thomas Eakins
Horse Skeleton
1878
plaster relief
Philadelphia Museum of Art

Augustus-Saint Gaudens
Portrait of Homer Schiff Saint-Gaudens (age 17 months)
modeled 1882, carved 1906-07
marble relief
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

César Isidore Henry Cros
Pasiphaë adorning the Bull with Flowers
ca. 1891-1907
pâte de verre
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

George James Frampton
Agriculture
before 1896
marble relief
Victoria & Albert Museum

George James Frampton
Commerce
before 1896
marble relief
Victoria & Albert Museum

George James Frampton
Literature, Art and Science
before 1896
marble relief
Victoria & Albert Museum

Henri Gaudier-Brzeska
The Wrestlers
1914
plaster relief
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

George Segal
Miles & His Photographs
1990
plaster, wood, paint, photographs
Wadsworth Atheneum, Hartford, Connecticut