‘A distillation of form and feeling’ — Brancusi’s La muse endormie

Alastair Sooke and Anika Guntrum | Christies.com | 17th April 2017

 

On arriving in Paris a young Brancusi tried working in Rodin’s studio but quickly left. “Nothing grows under big trees”, he said.  Robert Hughes speculates that Brancusi’s meticulously polished surfaces nonetheless show what he had learned from the master – “the importance of the sculptural skin as an expressive envelope”. The embedded video is a nice complement to the linked essay.