In the Modern Wing of The Arts Institute of Chicago lies an egg-shaped bronze face, slightly larger than a football, with barely any facial complexions other than a carved, polished, sharp nose that symmetrically extends to opposite sides to suggest eyebrows, and creases to depict a set of hair and a mouth. It lies almost as if it were toppled over, in a way that imitates a head surrendered to gravity in its sleep. Some rooms over, a striking golden structure ascends from two wooden and stone geometrically shaped bases, stacked over each other to reach up to the height of an adult chest.

Sleeping Muse, Constantin Brancusi (1910)

The structure, a sharp gold in color but crafted out of bronze, stands erected surpassing the human height, initially imitating the shape of a baseball bat but disrupting the shape in an unapologetic curvature at the top of the sculpture. Both works, Sleeping Muse (1910) and Golden Bird (1919/20), belong to Romanian born, French-based artist Constantin Brancusi (1876-1957). 

Brancusi works to reject becoming a product of his time and pushes his work towards entering into a realm of eternity, surrounded by an embrace of mysticism in his themes, modes, and subjects of portrayal. His modes of making seek to fight the conditions of modern production by emphasizing a return to artisanal modes of carving. His subjects evolve from portraying legible figures in unconventional methods, like Sleeping Muse, to an affinity towards complete abstraction with equal underscoring on the way, or the base, in which the work is exposed, in the hope of tapping into the true essence of the subject, rather than a recognizable depiction.

Sleeping Muse still reveals the visibility of the material, the bronze is emphasized in the tincture and oxidation of the sculpture, while Golden Bird presents a radical departure from Rodin’s influence. The latter features a translucent, shimmering gloss, which proposes that the sculpture is made out of gold, rather than bronze. The artist’s presence in the manipulation of the material is also illegible, as the human touch gives the notion of having been replaced by the technologized sharpness of industrial modes of production. Counterintuitively, Golden Bird, as a rejection of Rodin’s influence in order to stir away from becoming a technologized product, looks more like a technologized product than Sleeping Muse. Brancusi’s work seems to have an inversely proportional relationship between mode of production and final product- the more he aims to preserve a method of craftsmanship and reveal the genuine nature of the material, the more technologized and subject to the conditions of modernity his items appear. 

Although some scholars argue that Brancusi’s work shows “no stages of evolution, no distinct stages”, possibly because of an unabridged rejection of the status-quo predetermined to define “good sculpture” in order to segregate his work from the constraints of his time, these are apparent in the choice of subjects he portrays, moving from a legible subject portrayed in an unconventional way, like a face in Sleeping Muse, to complete abstraction in Golden Bird. Sleeping Muse presents a face, but doesn’t aim to portray the fine details of a realistic looking face that reigned classical sculpture like that of Michelangelo, which focused on intricately detailing the subject in aims to closely replicate the features of a white, hellenic person. Brancusi puts forth a genderless character, with minimal carving, only enough for the subject to be legible as a face. There is ambiguity in the portrayal of the eyes, with no carving present in that area, only a shadow that merely suggests their existence. These features, ambiguity in eyes and gender, an elongated face, and a sharpened nose that extends to the eyebrow region can be found in African masks, which Brancusi seems to draw upon in a rejection of white mainstream subjects of portrayal. In his aims to detach from the mainstream, paradoxically, he becomes subject to a white-male mainstream act of primitivism, appropriating African culture through aesthetic idealization, a common theme across avant-garde artists at the time, like Henri Matisse, Georges Braques, and Pablo Picasso in works like Demoiselles D’Avignon.

There is a clear distinction to the work that precedes Sleeping Muse; Golden Bird erases any legibility of subject, presented in the form of a raised structure, initially increasing in circumference in a systematic, uniform manner, almost to delineate what might appear to be an upside down bottle, but then disrupted by a sudden calculated curvature to one side, that extends to near the extremity of the object, which again presents a substantially smaller curvature, at a steeper and sharper angle. The ambiguity in shape does not suggest any realistic depiction of anything apparent, despite his title alluding to a bird, with its shape possibly mimicking anything from a phallic structure, to a baseball bat. The refined meticulousness, size, and ornamentary physiognomy of the lustrous gold shape seems to counter the rawness of an animal in its natural environment. Nevertheless, at the core of this abstraction prevails his intent with the work- to tap into what he believes to be the true nature, the root, the elemental substance of the subject. “What is real is not the external form,” he claims, “but the essence of things.” With Golden Bird, part of a 27 piece series Bird, Brancusi aims to “render the essence of flight.”

The clear distinction between Sleeping Muse and Golden Bird, in terms of legibility of subject- how Brancusi’s turn to complete abstraction sparked a reconsideration of what encompasses art- is illustrated and contextualized by an incident at U.S customs, where a work of the Bird series was imposed a tax, typically applied to industrial materials such as kitchen appliances and failed to be considered as art. The confusion for an industrialized object directly conflicts with Brancusi’s ideas behind the artisanal nature and very much dettaches it from an aim to conserve a hand-crafted quality. Sleeping Muse on the other hand, would have been considered art as it fits under the used definition of a sculpture at the time, as a“reproduction by carving or casting, imitations of natural objects, chiefly the human form.” Brancusi then legally pursues the case by suing in aims to advocate for his work, very much subjecting it to the conditions of his time.

In Brancusi’s move to abstraction, he brings an additional sense of mysticism by incorporating bases in his work, and highlighting a parallel importance from the base to the sculpture. As a result, the lack of a base then gains a prominence to the interpretation of the work. In a quest to tap into the true nature of the subjects, rather than reproduce realistic interpretations, a base, or lack thereof, adds to the quintessential characteristics of the subjects suggested by the title. The stacking of the bases found in Golden Bird, add height and size to the sculpture, and thus add a sense of remorseless magnitude and vastness, establishing the large sculpture into a space, possibly suggesting something about the notability of birds, or the natural world. The lack of allusion to the natural world in the materiality of the golden sculpture can be found in the age-revealing (in its apparent rings), wooden base. This base, the largest part of the piece, which might also contribute to Brancusi’s interpretation of the “true nature” of a bird, is carved in the shape of two pyramids merged into each other, carrying a cube. The second base, a stone geometrical figure mimicking his sculpture Endless Column, hints at the “possibility of endless repetition”, furthers the mystical sense of Golden Bird, and proposes another layer to Brancusi’s abstraction, intending to attach a sensation of universality and eternity. Contrastingly, Sleeping Muse’s lack of a base is equally as important, as it implies that the true nature of a sleeping figure is vulnerable if compared to the grandiose portrayal of Golden Bird. It is in the mode of portrayal, the absence of a base to hold the figure in an upright position, that surrenders the figure to gravity to make it seem like the figure is sleeping. The mode of portrayal, when taken as a conversation between both pieces, thus seems crucial to the meaning of the work.

Brancusi works to detach from being a product of his time and untap the true essence of subjects and their universal, mystical qualities. “I do not aspire to be in fashion.” he claims, “For what is in fashion, goes out of fashion. If, on the contrary, your work is contested today, it doesn't matter. For when it is finally understood, it will be for eternity.” With works such as Sleeping Muse and Golden Bird he sheds light to questions surrounding materiality, method of creation, subject of portrayal, and framing of portrayal. His turn from legibility to absolute abstraction, to continue his quest for the eternal and the truth, result in sculptures that seem to further illustrate the conditions of modernity, showcasing futuristic-looking objects and refinement with technologized tools. Brancusi’s works then presents a paradox: the more he aims to steer away from becoming a reflection of his time, the more he subjects his work to the circumstances of his time.

Works Cited

1. Aldrich, Robert. Greater France: a History of French Overseas Expansion. Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2002. Page 248.

2. Bach, Friedrich Teja, Margit Rowell, and Ann Temkin. Constantin Brancusi: Publ. on the Occasion of the Exhibition Constantin Brancusi 1876-1957 ... Organized by the Philadephia Museum of Art and the Centre De Pompidou, Paris. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1995.

3. Brancusi, Constantin. “Sleeping Muse.” The Art Institute of Chicago. Modern Art, January 1, 1970. https://www.artic.edu/artworks/9024/sleeping-muse.

4. Brancusi, Constantin. “Golden Bird.” The Art Institute of Chicago. Modern Art, January 1, 1970. https://www.artic.edu/artworks/91194/golden-bird.

5. Macholz, Kaitlin. “How Constantin Brancusi Brazenly Redefined Sculpture.” Artsy, July 20, 2018.https://www.artsy.net/article/artsy-editorial-constantin-brancusi-brazenly-redefined-sculpture.

6. Riding, Alan. “Where Brancusi's Independent Road Led.” The New York Times. The New York Times, April 18, 1995. https://www.nytimes.com/1995/04/18/arts/where-brancusi-s-independent-road-led.html.