Henry Moore citations (44 citations, Page 2)

Henry Moore: 44 citations0 J'aime

Henry Moore: Citations en anglais

“Since the Gothic, European sculpture had become overgrown with moss, weeds – all sorts of surface excrescences which completely concealed shape. It has been Brancusi's special mission to get rid of this overgrowth, and make us once more shape-conscious. To do this he has had to concentrate on very simple direct shapes, to keep his sculpture, as it were, one-cylindered, to refine and polish a single shape to a degree almost too precious.... it may now be no longer necessary to close down and restrict sculpture to the single form unit. We can now begin to open out. To relate and combine together several forms of varied sizes, sections, and directions into one organic whole.”

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Henry Moore

Source: 1925 - 1940, The sculptor speaks' (1937), p. 250

“When I was offered the site near the House of Lords... I liked the place so much that I didn't bother to go and see an alternative site in Hyde Park — one lonely sculpture can be lost in a large park. The House of Lords site is quite different. It is next to a path where people walk and it has a few seats where they can sit and contemplate it.”

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Henry Moore

Quoted by Mary Chamot, Dennis Farr and Martin Butlin, in Tate Gallery Catalogues: The Modern British Paintings, drawings and Sculpture, Volume II (Oldbourne Press, London, 1964), p. 481 http://www.henry-moore-fdn.co.uk/matrix_engine/content.php?page_id=3689 <br class="br">his remark, concerning the placement of his large sculpture 'Knife Edge – Two Piece', 1962 https://www.parliament.uk/about/art-in-parliament/global/print/?art=S715 - located near the House of Lords. <br class="br">1955 - 1970

“I have always paid great attention to natural forms, such as bones, shells, and pebbles, etc. Sometimes for several years running I have been to the same part of the seashore – but each year a new shape of pebble has caught my eye, which the year before, though it was there in hundreds, I never saw… Pebbles show Nature's way of working stone. Some of the pebbles I pick up have holes right through them... A piece of stone can have [for the sculptor] a hole through it and not be weakened – if the hole is of a studied size, shape and direction. On the principle of the arch, it can remain just as strong.”

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Henry Moore

Source: 1925 - 1940, The sculptor speaks' (1937), pp. 250-251

“My work may be balanced on the second side [the Romantic tendency]….- but I believe it has some elements of order & unity, some design, even balance & abstract qualities, some tenseness. When its all classical, its too obvious & cold & deadly perfect - when its all romantic, its too loose uncontrolled wildly chaotic & shapeless – But in my opinion – Gothic sculpture – Mexican, all primitive sculpture, Shakespeare, Beethoven, Tintoretto, El Greco, Rubens, Michelangelo, Masaccio, are all more romantic than classic [Moore is reacting here on Stanley Casson's critic in 'The Listener' 25 Aug. 1937”

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Henry Moore

Source: 1925 - 1940, Unpublished notes' for 'The Sculptor Speaks' (1937), p. 116

“Too often in a modern building the work of art is an afterthought – a piece of decoration added to fill a space that is felt to be too empty. Ideally the work of art should be a focus round which the harmony of the whole building revolves – inseparable from the design, structurally coherent and aesthetically essential... He [the sculptor] will want to consider both external proportions and internal space volumes in relation to the size and style of sculpture that might be required – not merely the decorative function of sculpture... I am thinking of the didactic and symbolic functions of sculpture in Gothic architecture, inseparable from the architectural conception itself…”

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Henry Moore

Quote of Moore, as cited by Unesco, International Conference of artists, Venice 1952; typescript, in HMF Library
1940 - 1955

“The conflict between the theories of Surrealism & pure abstraction leads many to look upon one as black & bad & the other as white & good. Yet it seems to me that a good work of art has always contained both abstract & surrealist elements – just as it has both classical & romantic elements (order & surprise?)... Surrealism is widening the field of contemporary art & is giving more freedom to the artist (& perhaps what is not unimportant, – stretching the appreciation of the public). Abstraction is re-establishing fundamental laws; bringing back form to painting & sculpture. There are many products of surrealism which I personally dislike,.... but equally Unimportant to me are the empty decorations produced in the name of abstraction.”

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Henry Moore

Source: 1925 - 1940, Unpublished notes' for 'The Sculptor Speaks' (1937), pp. 112-113

“Recently I have been working in the country, where, carving in the open air, I find sculpture more natural than in a London studio, but it needs bigger dimensions. A large piece of stone or wood placed almost anywhere at random in a field, orchard, or garden, immediately looks right and inspiring.”

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Henry Moore

Source: 1925 - 1940, The sculptor speaks' (1937), p. 254

“I was in the trenches in the last war [1914 – 1918], & so all the more don’t want to shoot or be shot at, again... Although no one can say there’s democracy in England in the real sense of the word, & although British Imperialism has a pretty bloody record, I hate Fascism & Nazism & all its aims & ideology so intensively, that I don’t think I could refuse to help in trying to prevent it from being victorious. However, when the time comes that I’m asked, or have got to do something in this war, I hope it will be something less destructive than taking part in the actual fighting and killing.”

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Henry Moore

Quote from Moore's letter to Arthur Sale, [English scholar and poet], 8 Oct. 1939
1925 - 1940

“The distinguishing quality of most primitive art is the intense vitality which it possesses, because it has been made by a people in close touch with life, who felt simply and strongly, and whose art was a means of expressing vitally important beliefs, hopes and fears. Negro sculpture is essentially religious and cannot be detached from the tribal gods, priests and ancient rituals. When civilization destroyed these things, it also destroyed their Art. These carvings have a serious and pathetic power – a bigness and monumental simplicity born of the racial patience in bearing life with all its terror and mystery....(But as always, it was the artist who was the first to see in them a new thing – a new plastic conception – an artistic worth – a value as art – their importance as art).”

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Henry Moore

1925 - 1940
Source: Primitive African Sculpture, Foreword, Lefevre Galleries, London 1933, p. ?

“One knows that later Giacometti broke this domination surrealist influence of Breton, and he became completely interested again in the figure, he became figurative – he did nothing in the end but portraits of his brother and so on, and all very.... not realistic, but interested in life, in nature, and not so much in the dream or in the fantasy.”

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Henry Moore

Quote in 'Henry Moore in Spain' / 'Henry Moore interview', c. 1981, HMF Library; as cited in Henry Moore writings and Conversations, ed. Alan Wilkinson, University of California Press, California 2002, p. 152
1970 and later

“I feel the conflict still exists in me – but not causing me any difficulty in working, as it did immediately after returning from Italy [in 1925]. In fact I ask myself is this [the] conflict what makes things happen? For it seems to me now that this conflict between the excitement & great impression I got from Mexican sculpture & the love & sympathy I felt for Italian art, represents two opposing sides in me, the 'tough' & the 'tender', & that many other artists have had the same two conflicting sides in their natures.... and really I see no difficulty in appreciating both sides & finding them in the same artist. Perhaps an obvious & continuous synthesis will eventually derive in my own work – I can’t say – I can only work as I feel & believe at the time I do the work.”

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Henry Moore

in 'Undated notes' 1950; as quoted in The Art of Henry Moore, Will Grohmann, Thames and Hudson, London 1960, n.p.
1940 - 1955

“My sculpture is becoming less representational, less an outward visual copy, and so what some people would call more abstract; but only because I believe in that in this way I can present the human psychological content of my work with the greatest directness and intensity.”

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Henry Moore

in Henry Moore on Sculpture, James, Philip, New York: Viking Press, (1967), p. 68
1955 - 1970

“I prefer Mexican to Mayan sculpture. Mexican stone sculptures have largeness of scale & a grim, sublime, austerity, a real stoniness. They were the true sculptors in sympathy with their material & their sculpture has some of the character of mountains, of boulders, rocks & sea worn pebbles.”

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Henry Moore

in 'Unpublished notes', c. 1925-1926, HMF archive; as quoted in Henry Moore writings and Conversations, ed. Alan Wilkinson, University of California Press, California 2002, p. 97
1925 - 1940

“There is no retirement for an artist, it's your way of living so there is no end to it.”

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Henry Moore