TÊTE D’HOMME COUCHÉ, MONTHYON
1934 -1936
Médium: Bronze
Dimensions: 14,5 x 21,5 x 15,2 cm
This is a bronze cast of “Tête d’homme couché, Monthyon (Head of Lying Man)”, a stone sculpture executed by Julio González around 1934-1936.
“Head of Lying Man” takes a roughly ovoid shape, and is posed directly on the ground, without any base or pedestal, as though the man were lying on his left side. The facial features—two eyes, the contours of a nose, a moustache and mouth–are roughly incised into the stone using the direct carving process. This means that the final form was dictated by the carving process rather than a carefully planned preliminary model.
In the midst of his experimentation with linear, ethereal abstracted iron sculptures in the early 1930s, González reconnects with figuration and mass in a series of carved heads, rendered in stone from Monthyon, the village in the Seine-and-Marne region where he purchases a country house in 1926. Though these stone works are closer to observed reality, they remain stylized. For example, the figure’s left eye is rendered as a gaping oval-shaped hole in the surface, while the other eye emerges in relief from the hollowed-out cavity of the right side of the face. The influence of non-Western art, specifically African masks, continues to be felt here on several levels, both in the textured surface which captures light and shadow, the schematized traits, and the oval-shaped void of the right eye.
Non-Western art was a major influence as well for González’s friend and colleague, Romanian sculptor Constantin Brancusi, whose influence here can also be felt in terms of this work’s technique and form. Like González, Brancusi settles in Montparnasse to develop his artistic practice in the capital of the arts at the turn of the 20th century. In addition to being a pioneer of the direct carving process, Brancusi also realized lying or reclining heads. For example, González and his sisters were photographed alongside Brancusi’s famous “Sleeping Muse” during World World I, along with its owner at that time, Léoni Ricou. “Head of Lying Man” reinterprets Brancusi’s “Sleeping muse”, opposing a coarse, somewhat disquieting male figure to Brancusi’s smooth, peaceful female creation.
“Head of Lying Man” speaks to the multitude of influences assimilated by González in his work as well as his constant creativity and inventiveness.
