Reclining Figure, Arch Leg

Henry Moore (Castleford, United Kingdom, 1898 – Much Hadham United Kingdom, 1986)
Collection: Musée d'art et d'histoire, Geneva

Henry Moore’s visual art concentrated on the human figure, and more particularly that of the woman. What he sought to grasp was the vital energy that animated and surpassed it, far from the canons of classical beauty. His Reclining Figures, a series of supine female silhouettes, are the quintessential embodiment of his research on the dynamism of forms, his penchant for biomorphism, and the oscillatory play between the abstract and figurative, between opposing tensions and forces. These monumental sculptures are intercut by gaps, twisting in upon themselves. Divided into several segments, they present a chaotic surface to the eyes, as if inlaid with old wounds, scars of a geological time to which they seem to belong. Geneva’s Reclining Figure, the Arch Leg, lies on the Promenade de l’Observatoire, a location chosen by the artist himself. Henry Moore elaborated a work of considerable power and resonance. Through his allusions to pre-Columbian culture, his relationship with space, and his updating of the link between the human being and the environment, his sculptures ranked among modernism’s most audacious experiments. His formal research and his plastic inventions contributed to writing the history of sculpture, and influenced several generations of artists.
Article commissioned by P3Art
Notice: Séverine Fromaigeat, translation: Matthew Cunningham