Figurative Sculpture
As a result of the ascendancy of abstract art, most people feel unable or inadequate to judge the quality of contemporary sculptural work. We are advised by critics as to which artist or whichever work should be viewed as outstanding and the market dictates their often astonishing values. When most sculpture was figurative or realistic, life was much simpler and everyone was quite happy to voice their opinions.
In the nineteenth century in Britain, there was a huge proliferation of figurative sculpture, largely as a result of the growing wealth of the middle classes, which allowed them to commemorate their own achievements in a way previously reserved for royalty and national heroes, and sadly, the increase in quantity resulted in an equal and opposite reduction in quality.
When the statues were erected in public, they were fair game for criticism and their contemporaries didn’t hold back. George Adam’s statue of General Napier in Trafalgar Square was described in the Art Journal as “perhaps the worst piece of sculpture in England” while Thomas Woolner’s sculpture of George Dawson in Birmingham was generally regarded as “so ludicrously bad that after the deceased fellow-townsmen had laughed at it for several years they agreed to take it down.” The Times even commented that “the low state of sculpture in this country, and the many failures which are conspicuous in our streets, have tended to cause a preference for a school or a hospital over an obelisk, a column or a statue”.
Most people were quite happy and confident to pass judgement because when it came to statuary, as the nineteenth century critic Francis Palgrave suggested – “There is but one standard for Sculpture – the look of the real thing” and it was against this criteria, that works were measured by one and all – the softness of flesh, the textures of hair, the apparent movement of drapery, the expression of the subject’s character and their vitality – simply, was it lifelike or not? When it comes to figurative work, it is a benchmark which still holds good today.
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John Stewart 