![]() ![]() He apparently ignored the museum’s renowned collections of Classical sculpture from ancient Greece, preferring the archaic works from the Cycladic islands. He describes going there at least twice a week to explore the galleries of Pre-Columbian, African and Oceanic art. To incorporate such influences was to retain a link with archaic art forms that had universal and timeless qualities.įrom his first visit in 1921, the collections of the British Museum shaped Moore’s understanding of sculpture perhaps more than any college class. For Moore, such artwork not only provided simplified and abstracted formal properties that he could assimilate into his own work but it had an immediacy which spoke of essential truths. This rather indiscriminate term was used to describe everything from Aztec stone deities and African masks to medieval statuary and cave painting. He was buoyed by the writings of the painter and art critic Roger Fry and the work of avant-garde artists, such as Epstein, Picasso, Brancusi, Archipenko, Modigliani and others, not least his mentor, the artist Leon Underwood (1890-1975), who championed a new visual language informed by ‘primitive art’. Henry Moore, Seated Figure, alabaster, 1930. Moore’s sketchbooks from this period show a fascination with Assyrian, Egyptian, Babylonian and Byzantine art. Such an academic focus may have left the sculptor decidedly estranged from Classical antiquity but, in seeking alternative inspiration, a more nuanced relationship with the ancient world developed. Moore considered such ‘tired forms of classicism’ as having little to offer and he determined to remove ‘the Greek spectacles from the eyes of the modern sculptor’. Moreover, it was mediated through casts of antique sculpture that had received an annual whitewash, blurring any sensitivity of form. An engagement with the Graeco-Roman world, which had captured the imagination of the British cultural elite since the 18th century, was unavoidable. In the 1920s, particularly in the environs of British art academies, the Classical ideal and, more specifically, the sculptural style of antiquity held a central position on the syllabus. During his student years, when he began to develop his own style, his relationship with history and tradition was both crystallised and complicated. Moore subsequently went on to the Royal College of Art in London in 1921. In September 1919, he enrolled at Leeds School of Art and was finally able to pursue his dream of becoming a sculptor – this was after an aborted attempt at teacher-training, and active service during the First World War. The nose shows the influence of early Greek art from the Cycladic Islands. ![]() The number of different caves, the diversity of techniques and styles on display and excellent state of conservation underline the importance of the Cantabrian coast for Palaeolithic cave art.Henry Moore, Two heads, 1924–25, Mansfield stone. The paintings you can see in them have an average age of 14,000 years and represent the pinnacle of Palaeolithic art in Europe. Its 17 caves come together with Altamira Cave to conform this World Heritage attraction. ![]() The UNESCO designated Cave of Altamira and Paleolithic Cave Art of Northern Spain includes sites in the Autonomous Regions of Asturias, Cantabria and the Basque Country. There are 17 caves that represent one of the most important ensembles of Palaeolithic art in Europe. ![]()
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