The life of sculptor Constantin Brancusi, whether it is his legendary journey on foot from Romania to Paris, his connections within the French art circle or his remarkable success in the United States, has the contours of a movie narrative, one that follows the story of a fiercely independent artist in search not of fame or fortune, but “the essence of form.” Brancusi’s works in stone, wood, plaster, and bronze embody a simplicity that echoes archaic sculptures, a clarity of form and substance that we recognize as timeless. Although he produced a relatively small number of works, they were avant-garde before the word became fashionable. More importantly, they shaped modern sculpture in a huge way, influencing generations of artists who came after him.
For an artist of his stature, Brancusi’s trajectory was highly improbable, or in his own words, “a succession of marvelous events.” He was born in 1876 in Hobitja, a small mountain village in rural Romania. Nothing has predisposed Brancusi to become an artist. At odds with his father, he fled the family home at the age of 11 and survived odd jobs. Almost by chance, he entered an arts and craft school where he pursued a classical education in sculpture, learning the techniques of modeling the human body. Thanks to a grant from the Romanian government, he decided to continue his education in Paris, then the center of the art world. The year was 1904 and 28-year old Brancusi set off from Bucharest on foot across Europe, passing through Hungary, Austria and Munich before reaching Switzerland where he took a train with money sent by his friend, Daniel Poiana, who was living in Paris.
Arriving in Paris in 1905, Brancusi enrolled at the Ecole des Beaux-arts. Paris was a magnet for the who’s who of modern art – Picasso, Delaunay, Modigliani, Duchamp, and Mondrian among others. While Brancusi interacted frequently with them, he was very much his own man in terms of artistic style. Even the great Rodin – with whom Brancusi worked as an assistant – could not hold the restless, young artist who left after a few months in 1907 to forge his own path. Incidentally, 1907 was also the year Brancusi created one of his most iconic sculptures – The Kiss.
In form and substance, The Kiss (1907) was a revolution. The work was carved using stone without human model and no attention to anatomical details. Instead of realism, Brancusi sought abstraction and simplicity. Two figures, each carved with an economy of features, are depicted embraced in a kiss. The woman is distinguished from the man only by the light protuberance of her chest and her long hair. It is a sculpture that harks back to antiquity, a clear rejection of classical preoccupations with realism and refinement. One could indeed say that this work was the seed of modern sculpture as we know it. For the next four decades, Brancusi would build his work around the aesthetic principles embodied in this sculpture, producing works with increasing degrees of abstraction.
The Art of Constantin Brancusi
Rare Footages of Brancusi
The next video shows Brancusi’s studio preserved at the Centre Pompidou, Paris.