Some famous artists did not limit themselves to painting and created sculptures that attracted as much attention as their paintings.
If you lack volume, sculpt: this principle was adopted by Mikhail Vrubel when Savva Mamontov organized a pottery workshop at his dacha in Abramtsevo. Many artists who were members of the "Abramtsevo circle" tried molding, but it was Vrubel who brought it to the level of real art.
Mikhail Vrubel. Demon's Head
He created sculptures from majolica, i.e. fired clay with azure, and he was able to perfectly convey his own signature shimmer, so his sculptures are no less expressive and memorable than his drawings. The themes and characters of the sculptures are the same as in the paintings: fairy-tale heroes in Vrubel's unforgettable interpretation, demons, literary characters and complex sculptural groups. Looking at them, it seems that the image from the canvas has received the necessary volume and depth, which is only to the benefit of the viewers and the artist himself.
Mikhail Vrubel. Robert and the nuns
Vrubel wrote: "I conceived to mold a demon to embrace the form as fully as possible: let him be my ideal model for the painting." By the way, his artwork was highly appreciated by the public and art critics: in 1900 Vrubel received a large gold medal for them.
Mikhail Vrubel. Egyptian girl
Austrian artist Ernst Fuchs wrote paintings in the style of magic realism and surrealism, but decided not to limit himself to them, good his friend and colleague Salvador Dali in the 1970s decided to try his hand at sculpture. "Why should I be any worse?" Fuchs must have thought and made his famous sculpture Phoenix.
Ernst Fuchs. Phoenix
By Fuchs's admission, he was initially inspired by classical ancient Greek sculptures, but it was all wrong, hundreds of times repeated, and their form, though flawless, gave no reason for fantasy. "But when I saw Dali's sculptures, I realized that you can be a surrealist not only in painting."
By the way, Fuchs' work became a source of inspiration for Giger - the creator of the very monster from the cult movie "Alien".
Giger. Phoenix
Many of his extravagant and slightly creepy sculptures are clearly reminiscent of the phoenix's pose: in this way, different sculptors and artists often carry out successful ideas of their predecessors through their own creative vision, and the result is something new, already in their spirit.
Giger. Stranger
But the sculptures of Salvador Dali are quite complicated: the fact is that all of them, which are cast in bronze and other valuable metals, Dali himself did not create. In 1969-1972, he molded a series of sculptures from wax, intended more as models for his paintings.
Surrealist elephant
But then Dalí needed money, and he sold his wax sculptures, as well as the right to cast them in bronze to the Spanish collector Isidro Clot. The latter, of course, used the opportunity 100% and flooded the art market with "authentic Dalí sculptures".
Unknown Master. "A genuine Dali sculpture."
Already existing sculptures were copied again, and eventually even self-respecting stock houses refused to sell them. Well, the exhibitions of these sculptures are certainly entertaining, but one should realize that Dalí has a distant relation to them, the more so that with each copying unknown masters added something of their own, and sometimes simply simplified the sculptures in favor of the technological process.
Why are the people in Fernando Botero's paintings so fat? The artist's own answer.
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