Constantin

Brancusi
B. 1876, HOBITZA,
ROMANIA;
D. 1957, PARIS

“Create as God, order as a

King, work as a slave!”
• Constantin Brâncuși, born on February 19, 1876, in Hobitza, Romania is
often regarded as the most important sculptor of the 20th century.
• His visionary sculptures often exemplify ideal and archetypal
representations of their subject matter.
• Explaining that "The artist should know how to dig out the being that is
within matter," Brancusi sought to create sculptures that conveyed the
true essence of his subjects, be they animals, people, or objects by
concentrating on highly simplified forms free from ornamentation.
• Bearing laconic titles such as Fish, Princess X, and Bird in Space, his
sculptures are deceptively simple, with their reduced forms aiming to
reveal hidden truths.
• Brancusi's work was largely fueled by myths, folklore, and "primitive"
cultures.
– These traditional, old-world sources of inspiration formed a unique contrast to the
often sleek appearance of his works, resulting in a distinctive blend of modernity
and timelessness.
• “What my work is aiming at is, above all, realism: I pursue the
inner, hidden reality, the very essence of objects in their own
intrinsic fundamental nature; this is my only deep preoccupation.”
• While many regarded his art as abstract, the artist disagreed; he
insisted on the representational nature of his works, asserting that
they disclosed a fundamental, often concealed, reality.
• The materials Brancusi used - primarily marble, stone, bronze,
wood, and metal - guided the specific forms he produced.
– He paid close attention to his mediums, meticulously polishing pieces
for days to achieve a gleam that suggested infinite continuity into the
surrounding space - "as though they proceeded out from the mass into
some perfect and complete existence."
• Unlike the towering figure of Auguste Rodin, for whom Brâncuși
briefly assisted early in his career, Brâncuși worked directly with his
materials, pioneering the technique of direct carving, rather than
working with intermediaries such as plaster or clay models.
 Early Phase
• Early sculptures by Constantin Brancusi originate from the
period of his education in Craiova and Bucharest.
• He studied art at the Scoala de Meserii (School of Arts and
Crafts) in Craiova from 1894 to 1898 and at the Scoala
Natzionala de Arte Frumoase (National School of Fine Arts)
in Bucharest from 1898 to 1902.
• He moved to Paris in 1904, eager to continue his education
in the major artistic center.
• The following year, he enrolled in the Ecole des Beaux-Arts.
• Brancusi secured a position in Auguste Rodin’s studio in
1907, but soon parted ways with the established sculptor,
claiming, “I felt that I was not giving anything by following
the conventional mode of sculpture.”
 Constantin
Brancusi
Head of a
Boy, Bronze
of 1906

“Every day I would sculpt

another figure only to destroy it in the
evening”
– with a view of exploring his own
aptitude and trying out different
materials.

Constantin Brancusi
L'Ecorche, Gypsum of 1901-1902
The Orgolium Torment Child's head
Shortly after, he accepted Rodin’s invitation to accompany him to
Meudon as an assistant. “Every day, I would create a sculpture in
Rodin’s spirit. I could no longer bear being close to him, although
he liked me. Everything I did resembled his works. Unconsciously, I
copied him but realized that I was producing copies. I was
unhappy. Those were the most difficult years – the years of
seeking to find my own path”
 Mature Phase
• Soon after 1907, Brancusi’s mature period commenced.
• He began utilizing abstracted forms and sculpting by direct
carving, a method characterized by working directly with
the material, as opposed to the significantly more common
practice of making a model to be cast or executed by
others.
• As his work evolved, Brancusi became immersed in the
Parisian avant-garde.
• Though he was never a member of any organized art
movement, his friends included Marcel Duchamp, Fernand
Léger, Henri Matisse, Amedeo Modigliani, and Henri
Rousseau.
 • It dates back to a time when Brâncuşi was
eagerly trying to find his own way.
• The distillation of forms, typical for the
Romanian artist’s modern approach, is eye-
catching.
• The woman’s rotund face, her broad forehead,
the hair dress and the slightly bent gaze will
become recurrent features in other portraits
made by the artist such as those of Mlle Pogany.
• The title Danaïde refers to Greek mythology,
however a simpler title “Girl’s Head” was written
by Brâncuşi on the back of a contemporary
photograph.
Constantin Brancusi • The sculpture’s archaic, weathered look is
Danaïde, Sandstone of endorsed by the porous, matt, rough quality of
1907-09 the Vratsa stone, a granular type of limestone.

The sculpture marks Brâncuşi’s departure from Rodin as much as from

academism, being one of the earliest modern attempts at redefining
(abstract) sculpture.
Earth Wisdom

• Constantin Brancusi
La Sagesse,
Limestone of 1908,
 Sleeping Muse
• Inclined toward expressing his beliefs through
proverbs, Brancusi claimed that
“Simplicity is not an end in art, but we
usually arrive at simplicity as we approach the
true sense of things” .
• The sculptor expressed the idea as early as
1906 in The Sleeping Muse, which was
exhibited in Bucharest in the same year.
 • Portraits, heads, and busts were
frequent subjects for Brâncuși,
and he received several
commissions for such work.
• With Sleeping Muse I, modeled
on the Baroness Renee-Irana
Frachon, Brâncuși developed a
distinctive form of the portrait
bust, representing only its sitter's
disembodied head.
• This work was Brâncuși's first
handling of the sleeping head.
• The smoothness of the piece,
achieved by the artist's practice
Sleeping Muse I (1909-10) of polishing the surface of his
sculptures until they achieved a
Marble - Hirshhorn Museum high gleam, contrasts with the
and Sculpture Garden, carved definition of the sitter's
Washington, D.C. facial features.
 • This thematic cycle occupied
the artist for roughly twenty
years.
• In conceiving and executing
Sleeping Muse, the sculptor
eschewed drama and detail in
favor of reducing ideas to
fundamental forms and
simplified details.
• He rendered the essence of
languor in the prostrate
position of the head, weighed
down by inertia, resting
peacefully.
• This bronze is one of four casts
made in 1910 from a marble of
Sleeping Muse, Bronze. 1910 , the previous year for which
6 3/4 x 9 1/2 x 6 in. (17.1 x Baroness Renée Irana Franchon
was the model.
24.1 x 15.2 cm)
 The myth of Danaides is the story
of fifty women who commit a
horrible wrongdoing: guided by
their father, they all kill their
husbands on their wedding night!
This great massacre was
unbelievable, even for the bloody
ancient Greek myths. It was a
crime that both people and gods
would punish. Indeed, the
Danaides were punished for this
after their death with a horrible
and eternal. For their father did
not want his properties to go to
his brother whose sons married
Danaide, 1913, Constantin Brancusi
his daughters.
 This is a stylised portrait of Margit Pogany,
a Hungarian art student Brancusi met in
Paris in 1910.
He made a marble head of her from
memory, then invited her to his studio.
He was delighted when she recognised it.
This is one of several bronzes based on
the marble.
Photographs show that Miss Pogany had a
round face with large eyes and strong
eyebrows, and wore her hair in a smooth
chignon.
Brancusi has refined her features down to
the very purest form.
The abstract curves of this piece, and of
the other 'Danaïdes', can be seen as
Danaide c.1918
Inscribed 'C. Brâncusi' on side of neck anticipating by some years, aspects of the
Bronze, 11 x 6 3/4 x 8 1/4 (28 x 16.5 x 21) classicising Art Deco style of the 1920s.
on limestone base
The Kiss
• Brâncuși's first version of The
Kiss, created in 1907, marked a
major departure from the
emotive realism of Rodin's
famous handling of the same
subject.
• The first commissions after
leaving Rodin’s studio were
mostly gravestone memorials.
• One version of The Kiss,
installed in 1910 at
Montparnasse, on the grave of
a young Russian girl, unhappily
in love, who committed suicide
– which reflected the author’s
future interests.
The Kiss

Auguste Rodin. The Kiss. 1901–4

 • This 1916 version is the most
geometric of Brâncuși's series,
reflecting the influence of
Cubism in its sharply defined
corners.
• Its composition, texture, and
material highlight Brâncuși's
fascination with both the forms
and spirituality of African,
Assyrian, and Egyptian art.
• That attraction also led
Brâncuși to craft The Kiss using
direct carving, a technique that
had become popular in France
at the time due to an interest in
"primitive" methods.
The Kiss (1916) Limestone - • These sculptures signify his shift
toward simplified forms, as well
Philadelphia Museum of Art as his interest in contrasting
textures - both key aspects of
his later work.
• Brancusi would repeat
the motif that Gustav
Klimt simulteneously
painted on canvas
(1907/8) times and
again changing the
impression with
different fractures of
stone surface and
degree of geometry
thus changing its poetic
values accordingly:
from the archetypal
over associative to the
very edge of
abstraction.
• Basically, it is a cubic form
vertically divided by the
separation line between the
two bodies, where curved
breasts and hair falling in the
back differentiate a woman
from a man.
• Other shapes – hands and a
semi-circular line of hair ends
– blend with the stone while
nut-shaped eyes, as shown
from the profile, are
assimilated into one cyclop-
like and scary.
• This simplification of shapes points
to the influence of emerging cubism
as well as primitive sculptures by
André Derain and Paul Gaugin.
• In the visual key of primitive totem
poles, formally departing from
European traditions, Brancusi
resorts to Plato’s myth of an
androgen – a two-gender creature
that the gods had set apart and who
ever since had been craving to
become one again .
• The degree of abstraction in
Brancusi’s sculptures often
depended on the purpose of the
sculpture.

Constantin Brancusi
Gate of the Kiss, Limestone,1909
• Brâncuşi once explained: “What my work is aiming at is, above all,
realism: I pursue the inner, hidden reality, the very essence of
objects in their own intrinsic fundamental nature.”
• The works’ themes echo this simplified tact, centering almost
exclusively on people and animals, particularly women, children,
and birds.
• In 1910 he made the first of his birds, calling it the "Meatbird", "The
Bird in Flight" "The Golden Bird", or simply “Mistress".
• The "mistress" of Romanian folklore has become a universal name.
• It was a bold step, because to him, no one had ever made birds in
the bloom as statues In the same year, a choreographer and a ballet
dancer, Diaghilev and Serge Lifar, put on the stage of the Great
Opera in Paris the ballet "The Bird of Fire" by Stravinski.
Brancusi as a Primitivist

• The year of 1913 was

significant as a turning
point: The First Step was
created as the first figure
in wood inspired by the
African sculpture

Constantin Brancusi Study related to "The First

Step" 1913
Constantin Brancusi, "The First Step“, 1913
• In 1914, Brancusi destroyed the body
leaving the head intact, a sculpture in its
own right.
 • In this, the first of Brâncuși's several
variations of Endless Column, he
references the axis mundi, or axis of the
world, a concept crucial to the beliefs of
many traditional cultures embodying the
connection between heaven and earth.
• This focus reflected Brâncuși's strong and
persistent affinity for the sacred, cosmic,
and mythical.
• Endless Column also treats another theme
of Brâncuși's work, the idea of infinity,
here suggested by the repetition of
identical rhomboid shapes.
• The most famous of Brâncuși's Endless
Columns was the version that served as
the centerpiece of the tripartite sculptural
memorial to fallen soldiers in World War I
erected in Tirgu-Jiu, Romania in 1935.

Endless Column (1918), Oak, Museum of

Modern Art, New York
 Primitivist form
• Although the extent to which Brancusi’s work was
inspired by African sculpture and Romanian folk
carvings has been widely debated among scholars,
it is clear that he was acutely responsive to
“primitivizing” influences early in his career.
• Paul Gauguin’s technique of direct carving to
emulate the raw quality of indigenous Tahitian art
inspired Brancusi to experiment with more daring
approaches to sculpture than his academic training
had previously allowed.
• Gauguin’s aesthetic most likely prompted Brancusi
to study tribal art, evident in the serrated patterns
typical of African carvings on the bottom portion
of Adam and Eve (Adam et Eve, 1921) as well as on
the sides of King of Kings.
• The overt sexual references in the former work may
also have been inspired by so-called primitive
Adam and Eve fetishes.
(1921)
Romanian sources
• Sculptural sources from Brancusi’s
native country are also abundant:
prototypes for the sequential designs
of King of Kings have been found in
Romanian vernacular architecture
such as wooden gate posts and
chiseled ornamental pillars.
• The Sorceress (La sorcière, 1916–24),
pictured with Watchdog (Chien de
garde, 1916), has been interpreted as
the flying witch described in
Romanian peasant tales.
• Brancusi never clarified the visual
sources for his designs, preferring
instead to promote an air of mystery
surrounding the origins of his vision.
The Sorceress (1916-24)
Artwork description & Analysis: Romanian
culture had a great influence on Brâncuși,
particularly its woodcarving traditions and
mystical folklore. Although he generally did not
cite specific references for his works, The
Sorceress, which was carved from a portion of
a tree trunk where three branches met, is said
to have been inspired by a flying witch from a
Romanian folktale. He also drew on African
tribal art for his woodcarvings, partially
influenced by the example of Paul Gauguin. As
with the present work, the base foundations
were important elements of Brâncuși's
sculptures; hand-carved by the artist, his bases
were intended as artworks in their own right -
a truly innovative concept in the history of
sculpture, upending the centuries-old tradition
of distinguishing between a sculptural artwork
and the base on which it stands.
Walnut on limestone base - Guggenheim
Museum, New York
 International figure
• In 1913, five of Brancusi’s sculptures were included in the Armory
Show in New York.
• In 1914, Alfred Stieglitz presented the first solo show of Brancusi’s
work at 291, his New York gallery.
• In 1927, a historic trial was initiated in the United States to
determine whether a version of Brancusi’s Bird in Space was liable
for duty as a manufactured object or as a work of art.
• The court decided in 1928 that the sculpture was a work of art.
• Five of his sculptures he entered the International Exhibition of
Modern Artists in New York known as Armory Show that gathered
300 European and American authors, who exhibited 1500 paintings,
sculptures and pieces of applied art.
• The fame that Constantin Brancusi enjoyed in America brought him
the commission for building the Temple of Redemption for
Maharajah Yeshwantrao Holkar II of Indore in 1931.
• The temple was to be a room without windows with an opening on
the roof.
• In its interior, which was to be reached through a tunnel, the light
would reflect from the surface of water in the pool and the walls
were to be decorated with frescoes depicting birds.
• Three figures Birds in the Sky that Maharajah had bought from
Brancusi earlier would be placed inside.
• The concept of the structure was to represent the very essence of
Brancusi’s basic creative principles: idealization of aesthetic forms
by integrating architecture, sculptures and interior design as well as
evoking the spiritual.
• The work on the project brought him to India for the first time in
1936.
• At the time, just like in 1937 when he visited India for the second time in
order to commence the construction, Maharajah, who was one of the
richest people in the world, did not live in India but in the USA.
• Meanwhile, since Maharajah had lost interest in the construction, the
temple remained only the idea and Brancusi himself finally quit thinking
about the project in 1938.
• The complex was to include a monumental sculpture made of oak
representing The King of Kings (1938) intended for its interior, which was
the only segment of the temple that took physical form, remaining as a
reminder of the entire concept.
• The sculpture is very specific because the work in wood itself results in a
unique example: works in wood or metal depict archetypal forms such as
birds flying or sleeping faces, while the personal contribution adds to a
particular impression of spiritual unity.
• Within the context, The King of Kings may be grasped as Brancusi’s
attempt to transform the power of Eastern religion into sculptures.
 Expressionist sculpture
• Brancusi, who grew up in a rural and archaic
mountain region, developed as an artist in an unusual
blend of a traditional wood carver and highly
sophisticated modern artist
• Wood elicited from Brancusi a tendency
toward Expressionism, resulting in unique carved
objects. For example, King of Kings may be
interpreted as Brancusi’s attempt to translate the
power of Eastern religion into sculptural form.
• The work’s original title was Spirit of Buddha (L’esprit
du Bouddha), and Brancusi is known to have been
familiar with Buddhism through the writings of the
Tibetan philosopher Milarepa.
Constantin Brancusi, King of Kings( Le roi des
rois ), ca. 1938. Oak, 118 3/8 x 19 x 18 1/8
inches (300 x 48.3 x 46 cm)

The monumental oak King of Kings (Le roi des

rois, 1938) was originally intended to stand in
Brancusi’s Temple of Meditation, a private
sanctuary commissioned in 1933 by the
Maharaja Yeshwant Rao Holkar of Indore.
Although never realized, the temple—
conceived as a windowless chamber (save for
a ceiling aperture) with interior reflecting
pool, frescoes of birds, and an underground
entrance—would have embodied the
concerns most essential to Brancusi’s art: the
idealization of aesthetic form; the integration
of architecture, sculpture, and furniture; and
the poetic evocation of spiritual thought.
Brancusi, King of Kings (1938), The Sorceress (1916-24) and Adam and Eve
(1921), The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, NYC
• His inclination towards stonecutting and
woodcarving, frequent exploitation of
architectural ornaments and other elements
of the Romanian tradition had been present in
his sculptures throughout his creative life.
Moreover, Brancusi always showed readiness
to represent Romania outside its borders:
• After 1938, Brancusi continued to work in Paris.
• His last sculpture, a plaster Grand Coq, was completed
in 1949.
• In the years following, he continued to adjust and
refine sculptural groupings in his studio, a project that
epitomized his interest in creating dynamic dialogues
among various works and the spaces they inhabit.
• In 1955, the first retrospective of Brancusi’s work was
held at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New
York, before traveling to the Philadelphia Museum of
Art.
• On March 16, 1957, Brancusi died in Paris.
 Birds
• In the period 1910 – 1944, Constantin Brancusi created 29 birds. La Maïastra, the first in the series
(1910 –1912), was inspired by folk tales from the author’s homeland (Sidney Geist 1968: 113–114).
La Maïastra represents a divine bird from a Romanian folk tale, which has magic powers. One of
them is the ability to reunite separated lovers. A series of birds, based on a fairytale, is an authentic
example of Brancusi’s quest and his attitude to the world. All his life Brancusi strived to depart
from the world of creatures, to ”capture” the essence of flight as a symbol of reaching the spiritual.
The first version of the sculpture is again one of the author’s first attempts to shape the place of a
figure in space (Arnason 2008: 153). The sculpture in white marble rests on a special pedestal – an
embraced couple hold a stone block on which La Maïastra is installed. In that way, the figure and its
base are so firmly united that it is impossible to establish the hierarchy of individual segments. The
weight of the stone block and rough rustic of the couple ”land” the sculpture of a bird whose
curved chest discloses a neck reaching toward the sky. In addition, the base that resembles an
Indian totem pole, discovers a special dualism between the magical archetype and modern reality.
The motif had over time developed into a sophisticated shape of Birds in the Sky where the motif
of a flight is superior to the look of a bird itself, thus determining the shape of the sculpture. The
sculpture Birds, cast in bronze, whose gleamy polished surface cannot be defined by an eye,
transforms the movement upwards: the substance, light and shape are simultaneously unique and
inconsistent. It was with this series of sculptures that Brancusi approached Gaston Bachelard’s
belief that ”the body of a bird is made of the air surrounding it while its life is the winning
movement”
• Bird in Space (1928) Bronze - Museum of
Modern Art, New York
• While his sculptures executed in stone or
metal represent archetypal forms, such as
birds in flight and sleeping figures, individual
works in wood suggest specific characters or
spiritual entities
• Artwork description & Analysis: Bird imagery
constituted a major part of Brâncuși's work for
much of his career. Beginning with his
1910 Maiastra sculptures, based on a magical
bird from Romanian folklore, he proceeded to
works such as Magic Bird and Golden Bird.
However, it was his many variations of Bird in
Space that comprised his best-known
treatments of this theme. In these intensely
polished works, Brâncuși dispenses with the
bird's physical attributes, focusing instead on
capturing "the essence of flight," through
elongated, slightly tapering figures that
suggest the bird's swift, upward movement.
 Egg or Female Heads
• One of Brancusi’s favourite motifs was a female head, present in his work especially in the period
between 1906 – 1912 and frequently depicted as an independent ovoid shape disconnected from
the body. The artist found a symbol of the origin of life, the miracle of creation, as well as a typical
goal of the quest for the essence of things in the shape of an egg, ideally rounded and dense. A
precursor was The Sleeping Muse from 1906, in which, in Rodin’s spirit, polished marble emerges
from a roughly processed base (Piper 2005: 394). Yet, the sculpture from 1910 in polished bronze,
ultimately exposed with fluid lines, shows the author’s intention to eliminate any personal feeling
in respect of the model and depict essential, universal and infinite characteristics of a human face
in its basic form. Originally, The Sleeping Muse was a portrait of the Baroness Frachon, who sat to
Brancusi for a classical portrait from 1908/9 that had never been finished. The impression that the
sculpture is to generate is concentrated in the oval shape of the head. Despite the exhquisite
feeling of smothness of lips, eyes and hair, it was not produced by the artist’s hand but emerges
from the material itself. The last portrait of the Baroness Franchon dates from 1912: the egg-
shaped face rests upon her hand, which somehow anticipates yet another portrait painted in the
same year, namely Madamoiselle Pogany. More than any other female character, the portrait of a
young Hungarian art student is recognized as a timeless icon of the 20th century avant-garde
modernism. It was presented to the audience for the first time in 1913 at Armory Show in New
York.
Constantin Brancusi
Madame Pogany {II}, Bronze of 1920,
• The portrait resembles an egg with two huge nut-shaped forms instead of eyes and a hint of the
nose, ears and mouth. In its later version (1919, 1931) those hints disappeared too leaving just the
egg-shaped form leaning against hands folded as if in a prayer. It is becoming obvious that alining
the portrait among the sculptures exhibited at Armory Show was not a coincidence: beside
Madamoiselle Pogany in white marble (Arnason 2008: 151) in New York, Brancusi showed The
Sleeping Muse, in white marble too, in addition to a version of Danaide – all three faces feature a
consistently implemented process of abstracting, reducing the head to an ovoid form and marking
elementary details. In case of Brancusi, a detail is not a factor of representation; instead it is
promoted with sensitivity of the purified visual language. A slight indication of features in the later
portrait of the Baroness Franchon, as well as it is the case with Madamoiselle Pogany, is a part of a
unique form starting with hands and extending to the neck and the oval of the head. By neglecting
realistic expression, Brancusi deliberately emphasises different parts of a face in order to create the
image of essence – the spiritual state of a model. The first version of the portrait, unique in its
authenticity of material and an amazing hybrid assimilation of the human and animal, was carved in
white marble. A dominant interest in a female face, as well as consistent identification of the head
with an egg motif, is interpreted as attachment to a unique thematic circle – conception, birth, life
and death. In addition, the insistence on a female principle, points to the recreation of the
primordial onset of magical/artistic through Brancusi’s devotion to an archetypal model of a mother
Godess.
Constantin Brancusi
Madame Pogany {II}, Marble of 1919, c. 1925
vintage silver print
9 13/32 x 7 1/32 in.
without the dualism between male/female that is found in sculptures such as Torso
of a Young Man (1924),
 Last Project
• In 1935, Brancusi was commissioned to create a
war memorial in Târgu Jiu, Romania, for which he
designed a sculptural ensemble that includes The
Table of Silence, The Gate of Kiss, and a
monumental Endless Column.
• The project embodies the concerns most
essential to Brancusi’s art: the idealization of
aesthetic form; the integration of architecture,
sculpture, and furniture; and the poetic evocation
of spiritual thought.
The complex of monuments in Târgu-Jiu
• It was erected to commemorate the resistance
of the Romanian army to the German invasion
of the First World War.
• It was made in 1937 and inaugurated on
October 27, 1938
• The elements of this ensemble are found in
Brâncuşi's earlier works, such as the theme of
the Kiss in so many sculptures and the Infinite
Column of Voulangis in France.
Infinity Column

"My column ... will be

one of the wonders
of the world."
(Brâncuşi)
 • Filled with finished and
unfinished sculptures,
wooden furniture that he
made and material for his
future sculptures,
Brancusi’s studio was a
work of art itself – a giant
artistic enterprise. The
whole studio was set
around ”hybrid”,
changeable groups of
objects that Brancusi had
arranged in the form of a
giant scenography
Constantin Brancusi
L'Atelier, ca. 1927
The Table of Silence
The Gate of Kiss
Toronto City Hall-
Canada

An Architectural
Illustration of
"Kiss"
Brasilia-center-Fountain Dala-
a new form of the Kiss