NCEIV31 0-0801

Question 1

Lesson 31

Answer 1

Lesson 31 The sculptor speaks

Question 2

Appreciation of

Answer 2

Appreciation of sculpture depends upon the ability to respond to form in three dimensions.

Question 3

That is perhaps

Answer 3

That is perhaps why sculpture has been described as the most difficult of all arts;

Question 4

certainly it is

Answer 4

certainly it is more difficult than the arts which involve appreciation of flat forms, shape in only two dimensions.

Question 5

Many more peopl

Answer 5

Many more people are ‘form-blind’ than color-blind.

Question 6

The child learn

Answer 6

The child learning to see, first distinguishes only two-dimensional shape; it cannot judge distances, depths.

Question 7

Later, for its

Answer 7

Later, for its personal safety and practical needs, it has to develop (partly by means of touch) the ability to judge roughly three-dimensional distances.

Question 8

But having sati

Answer 8

But having satisfied the requirements of practical necessity, most people go no further.

Question 9

Though they may

Answer 9

Though they may attain considerable accuracy in the perception of flat from, they do no make the further.

Question 10

Though they may

Answer 10

Though they may attain considerable accuracy in the perception of flat form, they do not make the further intellectual and emotional effort needed to comprehend form in its full spatial existence.

Question 11

This is what th

Answer 11

This is what the sculptor must do.

Question 12

He must strive

Answer 12

He must strive continually to think of, and use, form in its full spatial completeness.

Question 13

He gets the sol

Answer 13

He gets the solid shape, as it were, inside his head-he thinks of it, whatever its size, as if he were holding it completely enclosed in the hollow of his hand.

Question 14

He mentally vis

Answer 14

He mentally visualizes a complex form from all round itself;

Question 15

he knows while

Answer 15

he knows while he looks at one side what the other side is like, he identifies himself with its center of gravity, its mass, its weight;

Question 16

he realizes its

Answer 16

he realizes its volume, as the space that the shape displaces in the air.

Question 17

And the sensiti

Answer 17

And the sensitive observer of sculpture must also learn to feel shape simply as shape, not as description or reminiscence.

Question 18

He must, for ex

Answer 18

He must, for example, perceive an egg as a simple single solid shape, quite apart from its significance as food, or from the literary idea that it will become a bird.

Question 19

And so with sol

Answer 19

And so with solids such as a shell, a nut, a plum, a pear, a tadpole, a mushroom, a mountain peak, a kidney, a carrot, a tree-trunk, a bird, a bud, a lark, a ladybird, a bulrush, a bone.

Question 20

From these he c

Answer 20

From these he can go on to appreciate more complex forms of combinations of several forms.