Henry Moore Artwork Catalogue
Reclining Figure: Angles
Reclining Figure: Angles
stamped Moore, 0/9
Like
many of Moore’s late works, Reclining
Figure: Angles is characterised by a sense of confidence and consolidation.
The work pulls together diverse interests from his long career, and combines
them with a distinctive twist typical of works from
this period. [1] Alan G. Wilkinson, The Drawings of Henry Moore, Tate Gallery, London/Art Gallery of
Ontario, Toronto, 1977, reprinted in Alan Wilkinson (ed.), Henry Moore:
Writings and Conversations, Lund Humphries, Aldershot, 2002, p. 98. [2] Henry Moore quoted in J.D. Morse,
'Henry Moore Comes to America', Magazine
of Art, Vol.40, No.3, Washington DC 1947, pp. 97-101. [3] Henry
Moore quoted in Sculpture in the Open Air: A Talk by Henry Moore on his
Sculpture and its Placing in Open-Air Sites, edited by
Robert Melville and recorded by the British Council 1955; typescript copy in
The Henry Moore Foundation Archive, Perry Green. [4] Ibid.
The
figure’s pose has echoes of the Mesoamerican chacmool sculptures that sparked
Moore’s interest in the reclining figure. Like the chacmool, the figure
reclines on its back, supported on its elbows with its knees raised and head
turned away from the body. The combination of ‘stillness and alertness’[1] that
Moore so admired in the chacmool is also characteristic of his reclining
figures. Unlike traditional European depictions of reclining female figures,
which are usually in passive repose on their sides, Moore’s female subjects are
active, propping themselves up and gazing intently outwards. Moore’s early
interest in the reclining figure theme was in part due to practical
considerations related to working in stone; a standing figure in stone would be
weak at the ankles, whereas a reclining figure – which can recline on any
surface - is well supported and stable.[2] He
swiftly discovered, however, that the tensions,
oppositions and asymmetry of the reclining figure made it an ideal subject for
endless variations in form, and it became an obsession that he explored
throughout his career.
References
to classical sculpture are also apparent in the naturalism of the figure and
the drapery covering her lower portion. In the early part of his career, Moore
rejected classical sculpture but following his first visit to Greece in 1951 he
began incorporating drapery in his sculpture. He observed that drapery could
emphasise the tension in a figure, ‘for where the form pushes outwards, such as
on the shoulders, the thighs, the breasts, etc., it can be pulled tight across
the form (almost like a bandage), and by contrast with the crumped slackness of
the drapery which lies between the salient points, the pressure from inside is
intensified.’[3] The drapery
in Reclining Figure: Angles, minimally
rendered in large, soft creases, serves to amplify the sharp angularity of her
knees.
Reclining Figure:
Angles also
demonstrates Moore’s enduring interest in analogies between the reclining
figure and landscape. The undulating curves of the female form echo the forms
and rhythms of landscape, bringing to mind not only
the hills and dales of Moore's Yorkshire childhood, but also the rolling
countryside surrounding his home at Perry Green. Moore also saw a correspondence
between the folds in drapery and mountains, which he described as ‘the
crinkled skin of the earth.’[4]
The work’s subtitle calls attention to its most
distinctive characteristics. Unlike the chacmool, whose pose is symmetrical
apart from the head, Reclining Figure:
Angles is a mass of asymmetric forms and tensions. Her head is turned
sharply towards the elongated expanse of her left shoulder, which juts out
above a right-angled arm, visibly taking the strain of her massive torso. Her
right shoulder is pulled back, raising her other arm up, horizontal to the
ground. Her knees project up and out, the opposing forces between them made
visible in the drapery. Further angles are introduced in her feet, breasts,
nose and hair. Moore was 81 when he completed Reclining Figure: Angles, but there is a playfulness in her
angularity, as if the artist was setting himself a challenge. Although her
angles are as numerous and diverse as her influences, Moore reconciles them in
a rhythmic harmony than runs through the length of the figure.