LA GRANDE TROMPETTE – LARGE TRUMPET
1932 -1933
Médium: Fer, forgé, soudé dimensions socle
Dimensions: 93 x 62 x 45 cm
La grande trompette, c 1933
Forged, cut and soldered iron, 93 x 62 x 45 cm
Private collection
A poetic evocation of a human head
The motif that inspired this sculpture is a human head. However, the process of analysis, dislocation and metamorphosis to which González submits it is so complex that this is one of his most abstract works.
The motif of the human head appears several times in González’s metallic sculpture, above all at the beginning of the 1930s. A group of works that can be considered close antecedents of this work are those that the artist calls “têtes en profondeur” (heads in depth). In these works, the superposition of plaques cut into diverse forms and situated “in depth”, each at a certain distance from the others, allows one to perceive–from a certain point of view and with adequate lighting– the appearance of a human head. One should note that González’s goal in these works was not the literal description of a head, but rather an effect close to poetry, when a conjunction of words, without describing something in an exact way, evokes the object through metaphors.
In two other heads created by González, Les amoureux I and Les amoureux II (The Lovers I and II), which can be considered precursors of La grande trompette, the sculptor uses empty volumes or holes, filled with shadow. Furthermore, in front of this dark hole, he poses a cut plaque, the profile of which resembles the sort of inverted pyramid shape formed by two faces united in a kiss. The contours of the profile and the volume of the head are removed from observed reality, but evoke it poetically by coming together in a novel and surprising way.
The dissociation of shadow and mask
La grande trompette presents us with several examples of dark, interior volumes: the dihedral angle formed by the two largest iron plates of the sculpture, the interior of the two demi-spheres each fixed on one of the demi-spheres, or the narrow, long cone that emerges from one of the demi-spheres. Furthermore, a plaque cut into an oval form evokes, like in several other flat masks created by Gonzalez two or three years prior, the generic form of a human face. In certain preparatory drawings for La grande trompette, this mask appears associated with the shadow created inside of the conical form. Nonetheless, by creating a three-dimensional sculpture, González dissociates these two elements, shadow and mask, accentuating the enigmatic power of the mask, which seems to be floating in space.
Unlike other sculptures he creates during this period, that he forges by combining iron plates and rods that act as planes and lines, in La grande trompette, the linear element is reduced to a minimum. This fact, in addition to the use of scrap metal and the application of autogenous welding, accentuate the rough texture of the material, and confer to this head a force and a density that make it one of Gonzalez’s most memorable works.
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