Sculpture Garden at Moma

Sculpture Garden at MoMA

Aristide Maillol, The River

The River was completed in 1943 by Aristide Maillol. This sculpture began in 1938 as a commission to honor a notable pacifist, the French writer Henri Barbusse who died around that time. Maillol initially intended to portray a woman stabbed in the back and falling, as a testament to the perils of war. He turned his idea into The River after the commission fell through. The anti-war work was just made before the World War II.

In a departure from the usual conventions of monumental sculpture, the figure lies low to the ground and rests apparently precariously on the pedestal, even hanging below its edge. Twisting and turning, her raised arms suggesting the pressure of some powerful current, this woman is the personification of moving water (MoMA).

Maillol died in 1944. This sculpture was cast in lead four years after his death. The River at MoMA was not the only cast. There are several other casts around the world, such as at the Jardin du Carrousel, Paris, Citygarden, St. Louis, Missouri, the Norton Simon Museum, Zurich and Kunsthalle Hamburg, Hamburg.

Maillol is famous for his portrays of nude female body. The River is also a larger than real-life nude female figure who dips her head over a pool. However, The River was in a usually active instable form as most of Maillol’s sculptures are shaped in stable and calm forms.

Even though the figure is contorted, it shows another kind of serenity and calmness to me. Her arms, legs, head, feet and the torso seem all confined in a position trying to find balance. It may be Maillol’s another way to show his harmonious view of the world. The sculpture is so eye-catching and was the one that attracted most visitors during my last stay there.

Pablo Picasso, She-Goat

Picasso’s She-Goat was created after World War II when he lived in Vallauris, the south of France, with his second wife, Jacqueline Roque. He worked there since 1948 and found new inspiration from everyday things and mixed them with traditional modeling and carving to assemble creatures that amused both connoisseurs and his young children, Claude and Paloma, and have tickled crowds everywhere for decades when they have appeared in large retrospectives of Picasso's painting and sculpture (Fitzgerald).

She-Goat is a rather playful bronze. According to MoMA, “Picasso searched the yard for discarded materials that could suggest parts of the animal's body. He crafted a skeleton with these objects, and filled out the sculpture with plaster.” The goat’s rib cage is made of wicker basket and its udders are made of ceramic jugs.

Picasso’s sculptures were donated by his widow to various public art organizations after he died. It is said that the donation was “primarily to