Henry Moore Artwork Catalogue
Goslar Warrior
Goslar Warrior
stamped Moore, 0/7
As a young artist Moore rejected classical Greek sculpture, but
following his first visit to Greece in 1951 he acknowledged that the trip had
provided some of the most exciting visual experiences of his life.[1]
Shortly afterwards, he began his most focused exploration of the male figure in
sculpture, a subject he had previously overlooked in favour of the female form.
In these works, Moore presents the male figure as a wounded warrior, sometimes
with a rounded shield and allusion of a helmet, referencing the sculptural
imagery of antiquity.[2]
Goslar
Warrior is the last of three large-scale warriors that Moore made during
his career. Although they were made over a twenty-year period, the works could
be read as a narrative sequence. The earliest, Warrior with Shield 1953-54 (LH 360), depicts a wounded soldier,
unable to stand but undefeated, his shield raised as if to deflect an impending
blow. In the second work, Falling Warrior
1956-57 (LH 405), the subject is defeated and falling, caught in the dramatic
moment before his body hits the earth. In Goslar
Warrior, the figure is fallen, his enormous shield uselessly out-of-reach
at his feet. In a final act of defiance, his head cranes forward, as if
straining to see the face of his aggressor.
Goslar
Warrior is more abstract than Moore’s earlier iterations of the theme, but
it also includes some figurative and naturalistic features. The figure’s body
has been reduced to a dense bone-like form, which rises and falls over angular
protrusions and twisted hollows. The warrior is limbless apart from one
truncated leg, raised in a defensive gesture, which acts as a prop for his
shield. In contrast to the serene curves of Moore’s female reclining figures,
the warrior’s contorted form evokes ideas of death and decay while also exuding
a pent-up energy. Although the warrior’s body is strikingly abstract, the work
also includes clear references to the sculpture of Ancient Greece, both in the
tragic heroism of the scene and in the warrior’s armour. His head – with its
hollow eye sockets and elongated nose - recalls the shape of a Corinthian
helmet while his shield befits an ancient soldier. Subtle naturalistic
features, including ears and a striated ribcage, emphasise his humanity and
vulnerability.
In 1974, Moore’s final
warrior was being cast at the Noack foundry in Berlin when he heard that he had
won a prestigious art prize awarded by the historic town of Goslar in Lower
Saxony. The prize included a commission for a major work to be sited in the
town. When Moore visited Goslar to look at possible sites he decided that the
new warrior being cast at Noack would be ideal. He sited the sculpture in the
Pfalzgarten (Imperial Palace Garden) and titled the work Goslar Warrior as a mark of his gratitude.[3]
[1] Interview with Edwin Mullins, Kaleidoscope, BBC 27 June 1978, reprinted in Alan Wilkinson (ed.), Henry Moore: Writings and Conversations, Lund Humphries, Aldershot, 2002, p. 70.
[2] Moore’s warriors appear to draw on scenes depicted in sculptures from the Parthenon which he saw in the British Museum. The warriors’ round shield closely resembles the shield carried by a Lapith in South Metope IV and the pose of the fallen warriors recalls a fallen Lapith beneath a triumphant Centaur in South Metope XXVIII. This observation was made in: Susan Compton, Henry Moore, Royal Academy of Arts, London, 1988, p. 239.
[3] Julian Andrews in Celebrating Moore, David Mitchinson (ed.), Lund Humphries, London, 1998, p. 306.