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拍品专文
Yunque de sueños I (Anvil of Dreams I) (1957) is the first in an important series of works that stand among the most eloquent expressions of Eduardo Chillida’s sculptural philosophy. A branched form in elegantly notched and tapered bronze—reminiscent of an opening hand, or a bird about to take flight—perches on top of a tall wooden base. The materials have an organic, rough-hewn presence typical of the artist’s work, which is deeply rooted in the landscape of his native Basque Country. The title ‘Anvil of Dreams’ reveals Chillida’s understanding of mass as a way to articulate space. While the iron proof for the sculpture was hammered into shape on a blacksmith’s anvil, the sculpture itself becomes a metaphysical anvil by giving shape to the space around it.
Chillida made eighteen Yunque de sueños works between 1957 and 1973, and a later example in 1998. Sculptures from the series are held in institutions including the Institut Valencià d’Art Modern, the Menil Collection, Houston, the Städel Museum, Frankfurt, the Kunstmuseum Basel, Kunsthaus Zürich and the Munson-Williams-Proctor Arts Institute, Utica. Another from the present work’s edition is in the collection of the Museo Tamayo, Mexico City. Yunque de sueños I inaugurated the series, and also marked the first time Chillida made bronze casts from an initial work in iron. It was debuted in his 1961 exhibition at the Galerie Maeght, Paris, where Georges Braque, in exchange for a painting, acquired its neighbour Yunque de sueños II (1959).
Chillida, born in San Sebastián in 1924, played in goal for the city’s football team as a young man. He studied architecture in Madrid and made his first sculptures while living in Paris, inspired by the Greek statuary in the Louvre. He found his true calling after returning to San Sebastián in 1950, where he encountered a blacksmith who taught him the ancient techniques of the forge. He made his first iron sculpture, Ilarik, the following year. It was a tribute to the carved stone hillariak or funerary stelae that can be found throughout the Basque Country. Chillida’s other early iron works were pronged and linear, recalling agricultural tools. The Yunques de sueños saw the emergence of more volumetric shapes, while developing the ‘stele’ format of a structure atop a tall plinth. The poet Octavio Paz noted the drama of their contrasts between wood and metal: ‘At times the relationship between the sculpture and its base is that of the axe and the trunk; at other times, of lightning and the tree’ (‘Chillida: from iron to light’, in Chillida, exh. cat., Carnegie Institute of Art, Pittsburgh, 1979, p. 16).
Chillida forged iron with an instinctive mastery, obeying the emergence of what he felt to be immanent forms within his materials. He regarded his true medium, however, as the void: the empty space in and around the sculpture, variously activated, pierced or cradled by its presence. The Yunques de sueños exemplify this idea. As with his iconic Peine del Viento (Comb of the Wind) series, the anvil and the dream represent a poetic duality. ‘Between forms and empty space, between iron and air there is a relationship which is very difficult to explain verbally, but which the eye and the touch perceive immediately’, writes Paz. ‘However, this relationship is not purely of the senses: forms draw attention to space and in some way give it meaning, give it a name. They are attempts to define space. They are called anvils but, though made of iron, they dissolve like dreams: they are pure space, bodiless and nameless’ (ibid.).
Chillida made eighteen Yunque de sueños works between 1957 and 1973, and a later example in 1998. Sculptures from the series are held in institutions including the Institut Valencià d’Art Modern, the Menil Collection, Houston, the Städel Museum, Frankfurt, the Kunstmuseum Basel, Kunsthaus Zürich and the Munson-Williams-Proctor Arts Institute, Utica. Another from the present work’s edition is in the collection of the Museo Tamayo, Mexico City. Yunque de sueños I inaugurated the series, and also marked the first time Chillida made bronze casts from an initial work in iron. It was debuted in his 1961 exhibition at the Galerie Maeght, Paris, where Georges Braque, in exchange for a painting, acquired its neighbour Yunque de sueños II (1959).
Chillida, born in San Sebastián in 1924, played in goal for the city’s football team as a young man. He studied architecture in Madrid and made his first sculptures while living in Paris, inspired by the Greek statuary in the Louvre. He found his true calling after returning to San Sebastián in 1950, where he encountered a blacksmith who taught him the ancient techniques of the forge. He made his first iron sculpture, Ilarik, the following year. It was a tribute to the carved stone hillariak or funerary stelae that can be found throughout the Basque Country. Chillida’s other early iron works were pronged and linear, recalling agricultural tools. The Yunques de sueños saw the emergence of more volumetric shapes, while developing the ‘stele’ format of a structure atop a tall plinth. The poet Octavio Paz noted the drama of their contrasts between wood and metal: ‘At times the relationship between the sculpture and its base is that of the axe and the trunk; at other times, of lightning and the tree’ (‘Chillida: from iron to light’, in Chillida, exh. cat., Carnegie Institute of Art, Pittsburgh, 1979, p. 16).
Chillida forged iron with an instinctive mastery, obeying the emergence of what he felt to be immanent forms within his materials. He regarded his true medium, however, as the void: the empty space in and around the sculpture, variously activated, pierced or cradled by its presence. The Yunques de sueños exemplify this idea. As with his iconic Peine del Viento (Comb of the Wind) series, the anvil and the dream represent a poetic duality. ‘Between forms and empty space, between iron and air there is a relationship which is very difficult to explain verbally, but which the eye and the touch perceive immediately’, writes Paz. ‘However, this relationship is not purely of the senses: forms draw attention to space and in some way give it meaning, give it a name. They are attempts to define space. They are called anvils but, though made of iron, they dissolve like dreams: they are pure space, bodiless and nameless’ (ibid.).