(1876-1957)
Brancusi, a Rumanian, moved to Paris to study advanced art around 1904. In 1907 he became influenced by African art and sculptures. He eventually began to develop an abstract style and simplicity of form for which he became known. vHe eventually returned to Rumania to work on sculpture where he later developed casting techniques as well.
BRANCUSI'S THOUGHTS ON ART
"After Michelangelo, sculptors wanted to make grandiose sculpture. They only succeeded in making grandiloquent sculpture. In the nineteenth century, the situation of sculpture was desperate. Rodin arrived and transformed everything. Thanks to him, man became again the measure, the module after which the sculpture was organized. Thanks to him sculpture became human again in its dimensions, in its signification, in its content. The influence of Rodin was and remains immense. While he was still alive and I showed at the Beaux Arts National of which he was president, certain friends and protectors, among them the queen [of Rumania], tried, without consulting me, to have me admitted to his studio. Rodin accepted me as a student. But I refused because nothing grows under large trees. My friends were angry, ignorant as they were of Rodin's reaction. When he learned of my decision, he simply said, "Basically he's right. He is as stubborn as Iamb." Rodin had a modest attitude toward his art. When he finished his Balzac, which remains the incontestable point of departure for modern sculpture, he declared, "It is now that I would like to begin work."
"The beautiful is absolute equity."
"Things are not difficult to make; what is difficult is putting ourselves in the state of mind to make them."
"When we are no longer children, we are already dead."
"Direct cutting is the real road to sculpture, but also the worst for those who don't known how to walk. And, in the end, direct cutting or indirect-that doesn't mean a thing. What counts is the thing made. Simplicity is not an end in art, but one arrives at simplicity in spite of oneself in drawing near to the reality in things."
