Bronze Sculpture – How To Honor a Living Material
May 30, 2024
“Bronze is the mirror of form, wine of the heart.” ~ Aeschylus
Honor a living material in bronze sculpture. Bronze emerges from a type of alchemy, copper and tin combine to create a material stronger than either, a partnership forged in fire, the molten merge creates a living material.
Dancing Girl of Mohenjo-Daro at the National Museum, New Delhi (India)
Humans first discovered uses for bronze 5,000 years ago. Shortly after developing practical technology, our ancestors saw its potential for artistic expression. It’s beauty and malleability captured the prehistoric human imagination, and for thousands of years we have created bronze sculpture. From The Dancing Girl of Mohenjo-daro dating back to 2,500 BCE, to Henry Moore’s Two Large Forms completed in 1969, bronze has been at the forefront of new sculptural language.
Two Large Forms, Henry Moore, 1966-1969
Due to its vast history, contemporary artists have the opportunity to study how bronze ripens like an organic life form, and incorporate the anticipated pattern of chemical reactions into the design. Heated and cast, a bronze sculpture materializes shiny and new, but with time and oxidation a patina emerges, brown and green. Like fine wine bronze sculptures are refined with age, becoming more of what they are with the passage of time, divinely co-created with the elements. The composition of the bronze, average humidity, sun exposure, and protective treatments all effect how and when the colors will change.
Spira Grande, 2022, Richard Erdman
While creating new forms, sculptor Richard Erdman imagines the work at each evolutionary stage. Creating a sculpture to be enjoyed throughout time, channeling the warm malleability of the material into the movement of the form. Erdman particularly enjoys the detail captured by bronze casting. Fine etchings and marks from the artist’s own hand recorded to the final form, an imprint of the creative process. It transports the viewer to that pregnant moment of creation.