Corinthos 1954-55
In 1954 Barbara Hepworth travelled to Greece for the first time. She visited in turn, Athens, Epidauros, Mycenae, Delphi, Crete, Rhodes, Cos, Patmos, Delos and the spectacularly volcanic Santorini. Upon return she received a large shipment of scented Guarea wood (a tropical hardwood) from Africa, and immediately set to work.
Corinthos is one of her results. The name itself is derived from the ancient Greek city that also played a key role in the development of early Christianity. There are actually two long letters of St Paul to the Corinthians in the New Testament. In terms of form Hepworth tunneled through the wood in a double spiral shape and painted this white, almost giving the impression of the coring of an apple.
But Hepworth recognized that the abstract sculptor can play a role in shaping human perceptions:
"If we had lived at a time when animals, fire worship, myth or religion were the deepest emotional aspects of life, sculpture would have taken the form, unconsciously, of a recognizable god; and the formal abstract relationships in the representation would have been the conscious way of vitalizing these ideas; but now, these formal relationships have become our thought, our faith, waking or sleeping - they can be the solution to life and to living. This is no escapism, no ivory tower, no isolated pleasure in proportion and space - it is an unconscious manner of expressing our belief in a possible life. The language of colour and form is universal and not for one special class (though they may have been in the past) - it is a thought which gives the same life, the same expansion [of consciousness], the same universal freedom to everyone."
From "Sculpture", Circle: International Survey of Constructive Art, London 1937.
Corinthos 1954-55
In 1954 Barbara Hepworth travelled to Greece for the first time. She visited in turn, Athens, Epidauros, Mycenae, Delphi, Crete, Rhodes, Cos, Patmos, Delos and the spectacularly volcanic Santorini. Upon return she received a large shipment of scented Guarea wood (a tropical hardwood) from Africa, and immediately set to work.
Corinthos is one of her results. The name itself is derived from the ancient Greek city that also played a key role in the development of early Christianity. There are actually two long letters of St Paul to the Corinthians in the New Testament. In terms of form Hepworth tunneled through the wood in a double spiral shape and painted this white, almost giving the impression of the coring of an apple.
But Hepworth recognized that the abstract sculptor can play a role in shaping human perceptions:
"If we had lived at a time when animals, fire worship, myth or religion were the deepest emotional aspects of life, sculpture would have taken the form, unconsciously, of a recognizable god; and the formal abstract relationships in the representation would have been the conscious way of vitalizing these ideas; but now, these formal relationships have become our thought, our faith, waking or sleeping - they can be the solution to life and to living. This is no escapism, no ivory tower, no isolated pleasure in proportion and space - it is an unconscious manner of expressing our belief in a possible life. The language of colour and form is universal and not for one special class (though they may have been in the past) - it is a thought which gives the same life, the same expansion [of consciousness], the same universal freedom to everyone."
From "Sculpture", Circle: International Survey of Constructive Art, London 1937.