Brâncusi

Constantin Brâncusi
Sleeping Muse
1910
bronze
Art Institute of Chicago

Constantin Brâncusi
Sleeping Muse
(the artist photographing his own work)
ca. 1910
gelatin silver print
Dallas Museum of Art

Constantin Brâncusi
Prometheus
1912
cast cement
Kettle's Yard, University of Cambridge

 

Constantin Brâncusi
The First Cry
ca. 1914
brass
Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto

Constantin Brâncusi
Le Nouveau Né II
ca. 1919-21
marble
Moderna Museet, Stockholm

Constantin Brâncusi
Beginning of the World
ca. 1920
marble, nickel, silver, stone
Dallas Museum of Art

Constantin Brâncusi
Oak Base
1920
oakwood
Guggenheim Museum, New York

Constantin Brâncusi
Mlle. Pogany II
(the artist photographing his own work)
ca. 1920
gelatin silver print
Art Institute of Chicago

Constantin Brâncusi
Golden Fish
1924
brass and steel
Kettle's Yard, University of Cambridge

Constantin Brâncusi
Sorcerer
(the artist photographing his own work)
ca. 1925
gelatin silver print
Victoria & Albert Museum, London

Edward Steichen
Brâncusi in his Studio
ca. 1925
photogravure
National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne

Constantin Brâncusi
Portrait of Nancy Cunard
1925-27
walnut on marble base
Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, Missouri

Edward Steichen
Brâncusi's Studio
1927
gelatin silver print
Minneapolis Institute of Art

André Kertész
Constantin Brâncusi, Paris
1928
gelatin silver print
Minneapolis Institute of Art

Constantin Brâncusi
Head of a Woman
before 1930
drawing
Art Institute of Chicago

Constantin Brâncusi
Self Portrait with Marcel Duchamp and Mary Reynolds at Villefranche
1931
gelatin silver print
Art Institute of Chicago

Constantin Brâncusi
Self Portrait in the Studio
1931
gelatin silver print
Moderna Museet, Stockholm

Constantin Brâncusi
L'Oiseau dans l'Espace
ca. 1931-36
black and white marble on sandstone bases
National Gallery of Australia, Canberra

Constantin Brâncusi
Golden Bird
1919-20
bronze, stone, wood
Art Institute of Chicago

from A Sharply Worded Silence

Let me tell you something, said the old woman.

We were sitting, facing each other,

in the park at _____, a city famous for its wooden toys.

At the time, I had run away from a sad love affair,

and as a kind of penance or self-punishment, I was working

at a factory, carving by hand the tiny hands and feet.

The park was my consolation, particularly in the quiet hours

after sunset, when it was often abandoned.

But on this evening, when I entered what was called the Contessa's Garden,

I saw that someone had preceded me. It strikes me now

I could have gone ahead, but I had been

set on this destination; all day I had been thinking of the cherry trees

with which the glade was planted, whose time of blossoming had nearly ended.

We sat in silence. Dusk was falling,

and with it came a feeling of enclosure

as in a train cabin.

When I was young, she said, I liked walking the garden path at twilight

and if the path was long enough I would see the moon rise.

That was for me the great pleasure: not sex, not food, not worldly amusement.

I preferred the moon's rising, and sometimes I would hear,

at the same moment, the sublime notes of the final ensemble 

of The Marriage of Figaro. Where did the music come from?

I never knew.

Because it is the nature of garden paths

to be circular, each night, after my wanderings,

I would find myself at my front door, staring at it,

barely able to make out, in darkness, the glittering knob.

It was, she said, a great discovery, albeit my real life.

But certain nights, she said, the moon was barely visible through the clouds

and the music never started. A night of pure discouragement.

And still the next night I would begin again, and often all would be well.

I could think of nothing to say. This story, so pointless as I write it out,

was in fact interrupted at every stage with trance-like pauses

and prolonged intermissions, so that by this time night had started.

Ah the capacious night, she said.

I had mistaken you for one of my friends.

And she gestured toward the statues we sat among,

heroic men, self-sacrificing saintly women

holding granite babies to their breasts.

– Louise Glück (2014)