Biomorphic Traces in The Monumental Sculpture of Boyan Rainov

Martin Trifonov;

doi:10.54664/ohgc4037

Biomorphic Traces in The Monumental Sculpture of Boyan Rainov

Visual Studies ◽

10.54664/ohgc4037 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 5 (1) ◽

Author(s):

Martin Trifonov ◽

Keyword(s):

Natural Objects ◽

Modern Sculpture ◽

Monumental Sculpture ◽

Constantin Brancusi

Boyan Rainov is born in 1921 in a family of which almost every member is dedicated to art. He himself is not well known in Bulgaria because of the fact that from 1946 he lived and worked in Paris, France. His work took place in the fields of drawing, illustration, relief and easel sculpture, but at the time of his stay in the French capital he managed to produce a number of outdoor monumental sculptural compositions. They are typical examples of one formal tradition in modern sculpture that refers its characteristics to organic and nonorganic natural objects. That tradition, often called biomorphic, is familiar to us from the work of Constantin Brancusi, Jean Arp and Henry Moore.

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The Shifting Viewpoint of the Outsider

Moment's Monument ◽

10.1525/california/9780520294486.003.0007 ◽

2017 ◽

Author(s):

Sharon Hecker

Keyword(s):

Next Generation ◽

Modern Sculpture ◽

Constantin Brancusi ◽

The City ◽

The Way

This chapter focuses on the sculptures Rosso made during his Parisian years. Medardo Rosso created such extraordinarily advanced work as Après la visite (After the Visit); Impression de Boulevard, Femme à la voilette (Impression of a Boulevard, Woman with a Veil); and Madame X. Rosso registered in these sculptures an uneasiness about personal encounters that related to his own experience as an alienated artist working at the margins. His innovative artistic intuitions and itinerant self-fashioning would pave the way for the next generation of foreign artists in the city, breaking ground for younger sculptors such as the Romanian Constantin Brancusi and the Swiss Alberto Giacometti, who enjoyed successful careers in Paris after 1900 and made significant contributions to the international birth of modern sculpture.

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Moment's Monument

10.1525/california/9780520294486.001.0001 ◽

2017 ◽

Author(s):

Sharon Hecker

Keyword(s):

Art World ◽

Self And Other ◽

Single Culture ◽

Modern Sculpture ◽

The World ◽

History Of ◽

Critical Account ◽

Modern Experience ◽

Artistic Heritage

Medardo Rosso (1858–1928) is one of the most original and influential figures in the history of modern art, and this book is the first historically substantiated critical account of his life and work. An innovative sculptor, photographer, and draftsman, Rosso was vital in paving the way for the transition from the academic forms of sculpture that persisted in the nineteenth century to the development of new and experimental forms in the twentieth century. His antimonumental, antiheroic work reflected alienation in the modern experience yet showed deep feeling for interactions between self and other. Rosso's art was transnational: he refused allegiance to a single culture or artistic heritage and declared himself both a citizen of the world and a maker of art without national limits. This book develops a narrative that is an alternative to the dominant Franco-centered perspective on the origin of modern sculpture in which Rodin plays the role of lone heroic innovator. Offering an original way to comprehend Rosso, the book negotiates the competing cultural imperatives of nationalism and internationalism that shaped the European art world at the fin de siècle.

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