Constantin Brancusi
Constantin Brancusi
Constantin Brâncuși; February 19, 1876 – March 16, 1957) was a Romanian sculptor, painter and photographer who made his career in France. Considered a pioneer of modernism, one of the most influential sculptors of the 20th-century, Brâncuși is called the patriarch of modern sculpture. As a child he displayed an aptitude for carving wooden farm tools. Formal studies took him first to Bucharest, then to Munich, then to the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris from 1905 to 1907. His art emphasizes...
NationalityRomanian
ProfessionSculptor
Date of Birth19 February 1876
CityPestisani, Romania
CountryRomania
Create like a god, command like a king, work like a slave.
To see far is one thing, going there is another.
Things are not difficult to make; what is difficult is putting ourselves in the state of mind to make them
...That which they call abstract is the most realistic, because what is real is not the exterior but the idea, the essence of things.
Architecture is inhabited sculpture.
The function of art is to make that understood which in the form of argument would be incomprehensible.
Simplicity is complexity resolved
What is real is not the external form, but the essence of things... it is impossible for anyone to express anything essentially real by imitating its exterior surface.
Theories are patterns without value. What counts is action.
The work of art expresses precisely those things which do not die. It must do so, however, in a form that bears witness to the artist's own era.
Nothing grows well in the shade of a big tree.
When you see a fish you don't think of its scales, do you? You think of its speed, its floating, flashing body seen through the water... If I made fins and eyes and scales, I would arrest its movement, give a pattern or shape of reality. I want just the flash of its spirit.
What is real is not the external form, but the essence of things,
Why write [about my art]? Why not just show the photographs?