Barbara Hepworth Quotes
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He Giovanni Ardini, Italian master-carver opened up a new vista for me of the quality of form, light, and colour contained in the Mediterranean conception of carving.
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I found one had to do some work every day, even at midnight, because either you're professional or you're not.
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Body experience... is the centre of creation.
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I rarely draw what I see. I draw what I feel in my body.
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One must be entirely sensitive to the structure of the material that one is handling. One must yield to it in tiny details of execution, perhaps the handling of the surface or grain, and one must master it as a whole.
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At no point do I wish to be in conflict with any man or masculine thought. It doesn't enter my consciousness. Art is anonymous. It's not competitive with men. It's a complementary contribution.
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I felt the most intense pleasure in piercing the stone in order to make an abstract form and space; quite a different sensation from that of doing it for the purpose of realism.
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Sculpture, to me, is primitive, religious, passionate, and magical.
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Light and space ... are the sculptor's materials as much as wood or stone ... I feel that I can relate my work more easily, in the open air, to the climate and the landscape.
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My works are an imitation of my own past and present.
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It’s the art-magazine ‘Circle’ been reprinted and it’s now referred to as classic. Well it is. But w:Ben Nicholson, Sir Leslie Martin, Gabo and Leslie Martin’s wife, Sadie Speaight, and I did that. We were sitting round the fire and we said, ‘Why shouldn’t we do a book?’ And so we started and now it’s a classic and referred to as such.
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The Acropolis – the spaces between the columns – the depth of flutings to touch – the breadth, weight and volume – the magnificence of a single marble bole up-ended -. The passionate warm colour of the marble and all-pervading philosophic proportion and space.
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Halfway through any work, one is often tempted to go off on a tangent. Once you have yielded, you will be tempted to yield again and again... Finally, you would only produce something hybrid.
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A constructive work is an embodiment of freedom itself, and is unconsciously perceived, even by those who are consciously against it. The desire to live is the strongest universal emotion, it springs from the depths of our unconscious sensibility – and the desire to give life is our most potent, constructive, conscious expression of this intuition.
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the 1960's began with a feeling of tremendous liberation, because I at last had space and money and time to work on a much bigger scale.
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It is easy now to communicate with people through abstraction, and particularly so in sculpture. Since the whole body reacts to its presence, people become themselves a living part of the whole.
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Before I start carving the idea must be almost complete. I say 'almost' because the really important thing seems to be the sculptor's ability to let his intuition guide him over the gap between conception and realization without compromising the integrity of the original idea; the point being that the material has vitality – it resists and makes demands..
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The naturalness of life... the sense of community is, I think, a very important factor in an artist's life.
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I’ve found opposition to my teaching because I said it’s not the strength which does it, it’s a rhythm. You don’t need huge muscles great strength. In fact, if you have that and misuse it, you’re going to damage the material. It’s absurd. It’s a rhythmical flow of an idea, whichever sex you are.
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Whenever I am embraced by land and seascape I draw ideas for new sculptures; new forms to touch and walk around, new people to embrace, with an exactitude of form that those without sight can hold and realize.. ..It is essentially practical and passionate.