One cannot answer this question as it stands,because every sculptor or painter has his own perspective. I seewomen first of all with the eyes of a man. So how does a man seewomen? One way of answering this is from a roughly schematicstandpoint: hips, legs, breasts, face. Or face and then the rest.Desire, i.e. needing, craving, wanting, direct the eye. Love, beingin love, has a different look than sexual longing, although oneprobably does not fall in love if physical satisfaction is notpossible. So sexual attraction, which is of course a physicalattraction, plays a roll. The face, too, is physical, although it isalso the transmitter of the spiritual and the intellectual. Also theface is surface, i.e. skin, complexion, physical characteristics:teeth, lips, the gleam of the eye, delicacy, tenderness, vitality,all this is alluring to our senses. I associate sensuality ortenderness and warm-heartedness with the face, also challenge,longing, wanting to be desired, all of these are evident in the faceand it has therefore perhaps an even stronger sensual allure than therest of the body with its primary and secondary sexualcharacteristics. Sometimes it is a smile, sometimes the voice, thatis associated with a certain face. Sounds are the province of the earand not the eye, and yet something of this must be discernible in agood portrait. In whatever face or body the sculptor is making aportrait of, something of all that model's experiences must beperceptible. Then there is the woman who is without a face for theman who desires her, because the all-too-personal, a character, isexpressed in the face and diverts the man from his desire, which isfor the body alone, - yes, even a hand is too much, for it is anagent of the individual will.
There is a contradiction in the model whose bodyradiates a sexual challenge, but whose face rebuffs every approachthat the body invites. All of this is pertinent to the question: "Howdoes a sculptor see a woman?" Actually, the only thing I can say tosuch a question is what I feel myself and what I have seen insculptors whose works I know. For instance, with Michelangelo,quietness and contemplation - it may even be that men acted as modelsfor the women in the Medici chapel. The breasts look like they havesimply been attached, added to the athletic figures, yet the deepsleep, what an erotic absorption, a dreaming within oneself, or thedawn, what an awakening, what an emergence in the face! Then thereare the heavy women of Maillol, especially the clay models in acharming pose, or the dignity of the torsi. Then Rodin, tormented bythe sensual aura of the women he sculpted. Then ancient sculpture,especially one in particular which I saw, done by an anonymousartist, moreover, whose name we do not know, a nude girl, parts ofwhich have broken off, but the piece that I saw in a museum in Turkeyis wonderful. She had rolled up a part of her garment and placed itunder her armpit. She was sweating from the heat and was drying herunderarm in this manner. In this sculpture, one can still see todaythe way a woman who lived more than 2,000 years ago carried out asmall and charming gesture, the way she relieved a momentarydiscomfort. Or one sees the wind, how it blew over 2,000 years ago,pressing women's garments against their bodies, as is the case in thewonderful Nike of Samothrace. One can view this beauty in the Louvrein Paris. Stylized sculptures of women do not interest me. I do notsculpt in order to be a sculptor, but rather to capture theenchantment of a woman, the enchantment of an expression, of amovement, and snatch it from the moment of passing away. Twice I havehad a moving experience in Greece, or should I add to that anothertime when I observed for an hour or more a woman lying in the sun,motionless, as she acquired a tan. I saw only her body, her face wasturned away; the only movement in this heavy resting body were thehairs on her mons veneris, shimmering in the sun like quiveringgolden wires, and the long yellow hair as it lay over her avertedface, tugged and whisked to and fro by the wind like a flickeringflame. Tranquillity, peace, and passively endured wild turbulence,that was a sculpture that hovered in my mind, even before I saw this.But I became conscious of it in that moment.
Then there is the sight of a desirable model, forwithout the desire, there is for me no emotive art. Then there is thesight of the model while working. The man's interest must disappearwhile I track down the lines and shapes which make up the wonder of afemale body. Here, perhaps, I am seeing more clearly than a man whoonly has an average ability to perceive. It is the trained, practicedeye, one without desire, that I can turn on like a light switch. Iflick it on and activate the inner current of heightened perception.It is like picking up a tool. Yes, the tool itself is this switch; assoon as I pick it up, I am a different person. My eye becomes colder,the emotional intensity of a beautiful moment is frozen, I search forthe line, the cause. But without the fascination which preceded it,nothing would happen.
Translated from the German by LynneKvinnesland.
Copyright 1999 Museum of European Art