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0009251

Author/Editor: MOORE Henry.

Publisher: Listener

Place Published: London

Year: 1935

Date & Collation: (5 June) Cover,944-946(6 illus).

Description: Mr Henry Moore the well known sculptor reviews in this article a recently published book on Mesopotamian art": Christian Zervos. L'Art de la Mésopotamie (Cahiers d'Art/Zwemmer).We need to look at them as sculpture for once a good piece of sculpture has been produced even if it was made like the palaeolithic Venuses 20000 years ago it is real and a part of life here and now to those sensitive and open enough to feel and perceive it...For me Sumerian sculpture ranks with Early Greek Etruscan Ancient Mexican Fourth and Twelfth Dynasty Egyptian and Romanesque and early Gothic sculpture as the great sculpture of the world. It shows a richness of feeling for life and its wonder and mystery... It has a bigness and simplicity with no decorative trimmings...Their sculpture in the round is still and static no physical movement or action is attempted for one of the essential facts about a block of stone is its weight and immovability. But in their reliefs we find actual movement and action portrayed for work in relief is akin to drawing and it is an easy attribute of line to flow and move..."
Reprinted in Henry Moore on Sculpture (See 0005627). For German version see 0007039."