Shaping Duration: Bergson and Modern Sculpture
The European Legacy 16 (7):899 - 918 (2011)
| Abstract | In this article, I consider the relevance of Bergson's theory of durée for an understanding of sculpture by focusing on the work of three canonical artists in the history of twentieth-century modernism: the French Cubist Raymond Duchamp-Villon, the Italian Futurist Umberto Boccioni, and the London-based Vorticist Henri Gaudier-Brzeska. While these sculptors produced widely divergent aesthetic forms, I argue that they all endorsed Bergson's notion of durée as a spontaneous process of qualitative differentiation. These artists reconfigured their medium in terms of Bergson's process philosophy, whether in the guise of an artists? generative imagination (Duchamp-Villon), representations of the human body as a living center of indetermination (Boccioni), or the act of direct carving as an intuitive response to a sculptor's chosen material (Gaudier-Brzeska). These Bergsonian paradigms enable us to reassess Jack Burnham's evaluation of Bergson's impact in his seminal text Beyond Modern Sculpture: The Effects of Science and Technology on the Sculpture of this Century (1968). Finally, by drawing on recent discussions of cybernetic and new media art, I will highlight the limitations of Burnham's categorical dismissal of Bergsonism as an outmoded metaphysics, irrelevant to newer conceptions of ?sculpture as system.? | |||||||||
| Keywords | No keywords specified (fix it) | |||||||||
| Categories | No categories specified (fix it) | |||||||||
| Options |
|
|||||||||
Download options| PhilPapers Archive |
Upload a copy of this paper Check publisher's policy on self-archival Papers currently archived: 5,653 |
| External links |
 |
| Through your library | Configure |
Similar books and articlesRebecca Hill (2008). Interval, Sexual Difference: Luce Irigaray and Henri Bergson. Hypatia 23 (1):119-131.
Heath Massey (2010). On the Verge of Being and Time: Before Heidegger's Dismissal of Bergson. Philosophy Today 54 (2):138-52.
Rebecca Hill (2008). Phallocentrism in Bergson: Life and Matter. Deleuze Studies 2 (Suppl):123-136.
Jesse Matz (2011). 'Quelque Romancier Hardi': The Literary Bergsonist. The European Legacy 16 (7):937 - 951.
Arnold Cusmariu (2009). The Structure of an Aesthetic Revolution. Journal of Visual Arts Practice 8 (3):163-179.
Nazım İrem (2011). Bergson and Politics: Ottoman-Turkish Encounters with Innovation. The European Legacy 16 (7):873 - 882.
R. Hopkins (2010). Sculpture and Perspective. British Journal of Aesthetics 50 (4):357-373.
Henri Bergson (2007). Creative Evolution. Palgrave Macmillan.
Henri Bergson (1944/2007). Creative Evolution. New York, the Modern Library.
Manfred Milz (2011). Bergsonian Vitalism and the Landscape Paintings of Monet and Cézanne: Indivisible Consciousness and Endlessly Divisible Matter. The European Legacy 16 (7):883 - 898.
G. William Barnard (2011). Living Consciousness: The Metaphysical Vision of Henri Bergson. State University of New York Press.
Thomas L. Gwozdz (2010). Young and Restless. American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly 84 (3):549-564.
Leonard Lawlor (2010). Institution and Duration : An Introduction to Bergson's 'Introduction to Metaphysics'. In Michael R. Kelly (ed.), Bergson and Phenomenology. Palgrave Macmillan.
Analytics
Monthly downloads |
Added to index2011-11-05Total downloads16 ( #74,564 of 548,977 )Recent downloads (6 months)1 ( #63,511 of 548,977 )How can I increase my downloads? |
My notes
Discussion
