Artist - Ron Mueck - schoolgirls viewing his hyper-realist sculpture of Wild Man.

Contemporary British art historian Alexander Sturgis’s short book on portrait sculpture can be read in an hour but the insights are many and there are specific references to over 50 striking, full-color photographs of sculpture portraits from the ancient, medieval and the modern. I highly recommend picking up a copy and treating yourself to an afternoon in the art world. Anyway, as a way of providing a taste, here are several direct quotes from the book along with my comments.

“The tension between idealization and individualism is evident. Unexpected and subtle details, from the idiosyncratic hook of the nose to the slightly irregular hairline across the forehead, disturb the head’s smooth symmetry and imbue it with the strong sense of an individual presence.” ---------- The author goes into detail in tracing the history of how various civilizations would either lean toward the idealized sculpted head or value the realistic representation of the individual sitter.

Is this head idealized Egyptian or Realistic Greek? The author says some of both. From 100-75 BC

“For many years the absence of color in the sculpted portrait was simply a given. Even today, we expect and accept the whiteness of marble and blackness of bronze and are as at home with this limitation as we are with that of the black and white photograph. But the apparent predominance of the monochrome sculpture in Western art is an accident based on a misunderstanding. We now know that much, if not most, of the sculpture of the ancient world, and indeed the medieval world, was highly and frequently naturalistically colored.” ---------- Can you imagine all those Michelangelo sculptures or Lincoln in the Lincoln Memorial painted in vivid colors? It seems if a modern sculptor wants to use color, they work in another medium other than marble or bronze, as in this giant resting head by Ron Mueck:


“An important way in which a sculpted portrait differs from a painted one is the manner in which it relates the sitter to the viewer. A painting can put the viewer, as much as the sitter, in his place. It controls the relationship between its subject and the person looking at it in a way impossible for a sculpture. The direction and nature of the sitter’s gaze, for example, is one of the painter’s most potent signifiers of character and standing. In a painting, it is always clear if the sitter is turning to face us, looking down at us, refusing to meet our gaze or addressing us face to face. If a sculpted head doesn’t meet our eyes, we can simply move around it until it does" ---------- Here is Mueck’s Wild Man (as shown above) where the photographer moved to a position to more engage the Wild Man’s eyes. I don’t know about you, but even in a photo, this is one powerful, eerie artwork.


“Scale is arguably Mueck’s most important medium. All his sculptures play upon the emotional impact of shrinking and enlarging the human form. It is an impact that relies for its success, at least in part, on the realism of surface, the unnerving sense of presence behind his giants and homunculi that make us uncertain of our scale when we confront them.” ---------- For me, the large really has power but many people find the small equally powerful. Below is Ron Mueck’s small-scale Two Woman:


Jeff Koon with his “Michael Jackson and Bubbles” – The author notes how the impact of this work relies on our viewing it as a monumental figurine rather than a life-size ceramic portrait.


“If with his “Little Dancer Aged Fourteen” Degas aimed to create an archetype for the particular and the individual artist Don Brown, in the extended series of sculptures of his wife Yoko, inverts the process: declaring the individuality of Yoko by naming her while transforming and perfecting her into an otherworldly ideal.” ---------- Perhaps this is why we love those ancient sculptures all one color – having only one uniform color conforms more readily to our conception of the ideal.

Yoko by Don Brown

“But though none of these works (by such artists as Degas, Mueck, Koon, Brown) are conventional portraits, the power and meaning of each depends upon the fact that they have a palpable individual presence at their heart. Like so many of the sculptors discussed in this book, the very different artists of these very different works both recognized and exploited the fact that this sense of the individual, this sense of presence, is conveyed more powerfully, disconcertingly and immediately through the sculpted image than in any other form.” ---------- I tend to agree with Alexander Sturgis on this point, but I can see how others might have strong feelings about the other visual arts, such as painting or photography. Let me just close by saying how this was one of my most fun reviews to write. Here's another Ron Mueck that I find particularly powerful, his Woman in Bed.
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Artist - Ron Mueck - schoolgirls viewing his hyper-realist sculpture of Wild Man.

Contemporary British art historian Alexander Sturgis’s short book on portrait sculpture can be read in an hour but the insights are many and there are specific references to over 50 striking, full-color photographs of sculpture portraits from the ancient, medieval and the modern. I highly recommend picking up a copy and treating yourself to an afternoon in the art world. Anyway, as a way of providing a taste, here are several direct quotes from the book along with my comments.

“The tension between idealization and individualism is evident. Unexpected and subtle details, from the idiosyncratic hook of the nose to the slightly irregular hairline across the forehead, disturb the head’s smooth symmetry and imbue it with the strong sense of an individual presence.” ---------- The author goes into detail in tracing the history of how various civilizations would either lean toward the idealized sculpted head or value the realistic representation of the individual sitter.

Is this head idealized Egyptian or Realistic Greek? The author says some of both. From 100-75 BC

“For many years the absence of color in the sculpted portrait was simply a given. Even today, we expect and accept the whiteness of marble and blackness of bronze and are as at home with this limitation as we are with that of the black and white photograph. But the apparent predominance of the monochrome sculpture in Western art is an accident based on a misunderstanding. We now know that much, if not most, of the sculpture of the ancient world, and indeed the medieval world, was highly and frequently naturalistically colored.” ---------- Can you imagine all those Michelangelo sculptures or Lincoln in the Lincoln Memorial painted in vivid colors? It seems if a modern sculptor wants to use color, they work in another medium other than marble or bronze, as in this giant resting head by Ron Mueck:


“An important way in which a sculpted portrait differs from a painted one is the manner in which it relates the sitter to the viewer. A painting can put the viewer, as much as the sitter, in his place. It controls the relationship between its subject and the person looking at it in a way impossible for a sculpture. The direction and nature of the sitter’s gaze, for example, is one of the painter’s most potent signifiers of character and standing. In a painting, it is always clear if the sitter is turning to face us, looking down at us, refusing to meet our gaze or addressing us face to face. If a sculpted head doesn’t meet our eyes, we can simply move around it until it does" ---------- Here is Mueck’s Wild Man (as shown above) where the photographer moved to a position to more engage the Wild Man’s eyes. I don’t know about you, but even in a photo, this is one powerful, eerie artwork.


“Scale is arguably Mueck’s most important medium. All his sculptures play upon the emotional impact of shrinking and enlarging the human form. It is an impact that relies for its success, at least in part, on the realism of surface, the unnerving sense of presence behind his giants and homunculi that make us uncertain of our scale when we confront them.” ---------- For me, the large really has power but many people find the small equally powerful. Below is Ron Mueck’s small-scale Two Woman:


Jeff Koon with his “Michael Jackson and Bubbles” – The author notes how the impact of this work relies on our viewing it as a monumental figurine rather than a life-size ceramic portrait.


“If with his “Little Dancer Aged Fourteen” Degas aimed to create an archetype for the particular and the individual artist Don Brown, in the extended series of sculptures of his wife Yoko, inverts the process: declaring the individuality of Yoko by naming her while transforming and perfecting her into an otherworldly ideal.” ---------- Perhaps this is why we love those ancient sculptures all one color – having only one uniform color conforms more readily to our conception of the ideal.

Yoko by Don Brown

“But though none of these works (by such artists as Degas, Mueck, Koon, Brown) are conventional portraits, the power and meaning of each depends upon the fact that they have a palpable individual presence at their heart. Like so many of the sculptors discussed in this book, the very different artists of these very different works both recognized and exploited the fact that this sense of the individual, this sense of presence, is conveyed more powerfully, disconcertingly and immediately through the sculpted image than in any other form.” ---------- I tend to agree with Alexander Sturgis on this point, but I can see how others might have strong feelings about the other visual arts, such as painting or photography. Let me just close by saying how this was one of my most fun reviews to write. Here's another Ron Mueck that I find particularly powerful, his Woman in Bed.
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