LLEI D'ART 11

jorge egea Doctor in Fine Arts with his thesis Modelling, Creation and Know- ledge: Spiritus Classicus , out of his essential dedication to the modelling of the figure and the classical tradition of the nude, Jorge Egea also investigates photographic principles, as a formalisation within whose limits light and matter flow as one. He is a lecturer in the Sculpture Department in the Faculty Fine Art at the University of Barcelona, and has taught drawing at the Polytechnic University of Catalonia, engraving at the Accademia di Belle Arti di Bologna, and has been awarded a scholarship by the Ministry of Education within the José Castillejo programme. He has a degree in Ceramics from the Pau Gargallo School of Art and has exhibited his work in urope, the United States and Japan. On classic and contemporary (I) On representation and beauty in sculpture (…and therefore, in art) In that state of life above all others, my dear Socrates,’ said the Mantinean woman, ‘a man finds it truly worth while to live, as he contemplates essential beauty. This, when once beheld, will outshine your gold and your vesture, your beautiful boys and striplings, whose aspect now so astounds you and makes you and many another, at the sight and constant society of your darlings, ready to do without either food or drink if that were any way possible, and only gaze upon them and have their company. [211e] But tell me, what would happen if one of you had the fortune to look upon essential beauty entire, pure and unalloyed; not infected with the flesh and color of humanity, and ever so much more of mortal trash? What if he could behold the divine beauty itself, in its unique form? Do you call it a pitiful life for a man to lead—looking that way, observing that vision by the proper means, and having it ever with him? Do but consider,’ she said, ‘that there only will it befall him, as he sees the beautiful through that which makes it visible, to breed not illusions but true examples of virtue, since his contact is not with illusion but with truth Plato in Twelve Volumes, Vol. 9 translated by Harold N. Fowler. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1925. The idea that modernity has about the constant innovation of forms of artistic expression (the leaning towards the invention of new languages, and not for real, poetic renewal) often leads to the oversight that this innovation can also be duly applied to more traditional didactic methodologies. This could be applied to the case of sculpture given its content and complexities, thus transcending what we traditionally call ‘the trade’ in its representation of reality. That is to say, using Clark’s words, the representation of the body not as a theme, but as a form of art. Our task is to recover the concepts of tradition through the innovation of creative behaviour patterns: i.e. by innovating the creative processes without destroying the idea of representation or form as concepts rooted into the heart of an area of knowledge such as sculpture. The three-dimensional character of form, of sculptural form, adds greater difficulty compared to other forms of image representation. Whilst it is true that we have a great visual culture and that in our society the image and everything that surrounds it has a pre-eminent place, it is also true that this image is conceived on a two-dimensional plane, as an image born principally out of the idea of the Renaissance ‘window’ proposed by Alberti. It is well known that sculpture interrelates with us as spectators in a very special way given its ability to present multiple viewpoints. Understanding three-dimensional volume and the relationship to the subject meld into the same thing for the creator and the viewer. For this reason, a series of skills are developed from sculpture, both in the fruition and in the practice of art, in the realm of spatial education – something that is difficult to acquire from other areas. The sculpture that attempts to represent reality brings the perceptive idea of the model to the abstract idea of the form . The experience of reality (the work of the posing model) is not attempting to obtain an exact copy thereof, i.e. what is conventionally called mimesis , but nevertheless does not mean a rejection of depiction, realism, perfection of beauty. The polar opposite to realistic representation is not abstraction; not by a long way. Abstraction is an inherent characteristic of art work; it is the process by which we are able to represent our vision of reality (whether it is idealised, mental, geometric, organic, irrational, perceptive or naturalist) on an externalised format, as a kind of translation, allowing us to communicate aesthetically. Here is where the expression that by definition, all art is abstract comes to life. Without this intrinsically abstract value, the work becomes a collection of meaningless forms, be they figurative or not. This ontologically abstract essence is the factor that allows for the importance of the work, and its connection to the idea of beauty. Sculpture makes us particularly conscious of this situation. In the initial action of modelling in clay, our hands create a form. Thus modelling is setting up, erecting, giving life to an initially shapeless form –modelling is therefore a medium for imagining, for creating images. This act of giving shape to something unites the mere act of sculpture with the wider sense of image creation, as shown by the medieval Spanish word ‘imaginero’ used to refer indiscriminately to painters and sculptors. Imaginería – the creation or engineering of the image – transcends the empirical knowledge conferred by sculpture’s contact with clay and puts us on the abstract path of representation. So, the process of modelling manifests itself in all its integrity and complexity, and this applies not only to the material used (clay, wax, plaster), but to a series of correspondences that configure artistic creation. As such, modelling does not only mean learning to shape clay, but entering into the world of image configuration and connecting with the creation of beauty. An image is ‘a vision that has been recreated or reproduced. It is an appearance, or a collection of appearances, that has been separated from the time and instant it arose in and persevered for a few moments or for a few centuries. All images represent a way of seeing’ (J. Berger, Modos de Ver. Gustavo Gili, Barcelona, 1975, pp. 15-16). As we become conscious of this fact, we become subjects that create, modellers of image and in a similar way, we impress upon the image our way of seeing and relating to it. When you model, an image arises and is formed, and at the 63