MAQUETTE FOR RECLINING FIGURE ARCH LEG

© The Henry Moore Foundation. All Rights Reserved

MAQUETTE FOR RECLINING FIGURE ARCH LEG 1969

Henry Moore (1898 – 1986)

Details

Dimension
23.3 x 10.8 x 13.0
Media
BRONZE
Accession number
P1568

Summary

After the second world war Moore no longer made preparatory drawings for sculptures, although he still experimented with three-dimensional ideas within his drawing and would sit down and sketch from his sculptures themselves. Instead, Moore worked directly with plaster and terracotta to produce maquettes of around fifteen - twenty-five centimetres long or high, using small scalpels, metal spoons, cheese graters, and other items he had conveniently to hand. In this way he could work on the whole form at once, producing maquettes like this one with no front or back, easily read from either side. Hundreds of maquettes like this stood in his studio, each one taking between twenty minutes and three days to complete. If the maquettes were kept underneath a damp cloth so they didn’t dry out, he could work on several at a time to develop an idea or experiment with different forms. He imagined them as though they were a fully-realized large bronze or stone sculpture, so that he could visualise how the piece would look on a huge scale. Not all maquettes were finished or cast, but once Moore was satisfied with a plaster, it would be cast in bronze for him to continue working from. The plaster maquettes were sent to a bronze foundry where the ‘lost wax’ method of casting was used. A rubber mould was made around the plaster, removed, and filled with wax leaving a perfect wax version of the maquette. The wax was then surrounded with a further mould of plaster and melted out to be replaced by molten bronze.

This maquette went on to be scaled up to over 4 metres long. Detailed measurements were taken of the maquette and using a grid reference, a working model around 5 times bigger was produced in plaster and again sent to be cast in bronze. As the model was enlarged further, polystyrene was used as it was easier and lighter to carve, before being transferred into plaster once again and sent to the foundry for the final casting. For large sculptures the foundry used the ‘sand casting’ technique, where sand was packed tightly around sections of the plaster model, which are then replaced by molten bronze. Once cool, the sand was then brushed off, leaving a dimpled surface which was polished and smoothed when the pieces were welded back together. A greenish patina was painted onto this maquette and the eventual monumental scale sculpture, adding to the impression that the work could be read as both figurative and landscape.
Text by Sarah Gillett, Visual Arts Manager, British Council, from the catalogue for the exhibition Henry Moore in Qatar, 2007

Glossary

  • Bronze

    A metal alloy made from copper with up to two-thirds tin, often with other small amounts of other metals. Commonly used in casting. A work cast in bronze is sometimes referred to as 'a bronze'.

  • Cast

    To form material such as molten metal, liquid plaster or liquid plastic into a three-dimensional shape, by pouring into a mould. Also see Lost-wax casting.

  • Drawing

    The depiction of shapes and forms on a flat surface chiefly by means of lines although colour and shading may also be included. Materials most commonly used are pencil, ink, crayon, charcoal, chalk and pastel, although other materials, including paint, can be used in combination.

  • Landscape

    Landscape is one of the principle genres of Western art. In early paintings the landscape was a backdrop for the composition, but in the late 17th Century the appreciation of nature for its own sake began with the French and Dutch painters (from whom the term derived). Their treatment of the landscape differed: the French tried to evoke the classical landscape of ancient Greece and Rome in a highly stylised and artificial manner; the Dutch tried to paint the surrounding fields, woods and plains in a more realistic way. As a genre, landscape grew increasing popular, and by the 19th Century had moved away from a classical rendition to a more realistic view of the natural world. Two of the greatest British landscape artists of that time were John Constable and JMW Turner, whose works can be seen in the Tate collection (www.tate.org.uk). There can be no doubt that the evolution of landscape painting played a decisive role in the development of Modernism, culminating in the work of the Impressionists and Post-Impressionists . Since then its demise has often been predicted and with the rise of abstraction, landscape painting was thought to have degenerated into an amateur pursuit. However, landscape persisted in some form into high abstraction, and has been a recurrent a theme in most of the significant tendencies of the 20th Century. Now manifest in many media, landscape no longer addresses solely the depiction of topography, but encompasses issues of social, environmental and political concern.

  • Metal

    Metal is a medium frequently used by artists to make art works - from sculpture to printmaking. Surfaces can display an array of colours and textures, and are capable of being polished to a high gloss; metal can be melted, cast, or fused, hammered into thin sheets, or drawn into wire.

  • Sculpture

    A three-dimensional work of art. Such works may be carved, modelled, constructed, or cast. Sculptures can also be described as assemblage, in the round, relief, and made in a huge variety of media. Contemporary practice also includes live elements, as in Gilbert & George 'Living Sculpture' as well as broadcast work, radio or sound sculpture.