A number of writers have attempted to characterize a distinct sculptural aesthetics,
in contrast with the aesthetics of painting. While Adolf von Hildebrand (1907/1893)
suggests that sculpture is distinctive in providing a series of two‐dimensional visible
silhouettes that are apprehended from various locations around the sculpture, most
have thought that touch or bodily awareness plays a special role in the appreciation
of sculpture. Herbert Read, offering an extreme version of such a view, claims that
“[s]culpture is an art of palpation—an art that gives satisfaction in the touching and
handling of objects” (1956: 49) and suggests that when we are unable to touch a
sculpture our appreciation is impeded.
Other writers, while acknowledging a special role for touch and related forms of bodily awareness in the appreciation of sculpture, allow that the activation of this awareness may occur by way of vision. Johann
Gottfried Herder (2002/1778) suggests that we use vision as a substitute for touch
in our apprehension of sculpture: the eye is guided to seek out the information that
the hand desires
We are then able to reconstitute an understanding of the form as a
whole by imaginatively synthesizing the data we have taken in through vision. (See
Zuckert 2009 for detailed discussion.) Herder suggests that the beauty of three‐
dimensional forms, and the pleasure they occasion, belong to touch: the form is felt
(perhaps imaginatively), not seen, as beautiful.
Some writers have objected to the suggestion that sculpture, in contrast to painting,
is a distinctively tactile art. Rhys Carpenter (1960) rejects outright the claim that
sculpture appeals to touch rather than to vision, regarding the matter as settled by
the fact that sculptures are made chiefly to be looked at and not felt. Hopkins (2005:
576) notes that paintings, like sculptures, can stimulate tactile imaginings in their
vivid presentation of textures. And Dominic McIver Lopes (1997; 2002) argues that
in principle, there could be tactile pictorial arts; it is merely a contingent fact that
our painting tradition is directed toward vision rather than touch. Several writers, though, have argued that sculpture has a distinctive effect on the perceiver’s bodily awareness. Herder (2002/1778) claimed that we experience imaginative bodily identification with sculptures that depict human bodies, and that
this allows us to grasp the sculpture’s expressive content. Robert D. Vance (1995:
225) suggests that such identification occurs even when the subject of the sculpture
is non‐human or abstract: “I identify with … the sculpture by imagining its apparent features as being experienced by myself,” and then “imagining it as an extension of
[my] own body.”
Vance’s claim that we identify bodily with sculpture seems more plausible for some
works than for others. While Meret Oppenheim’s (1936) Object, a fur‐covered cup,
saucer and spoon, surely affects our bodily self‐awareness, it seems to do so by
provoking us to imagine what it would feel like to use the objects (and tempting us
to touch them), rather than by causing us to experience them as parts or extensions
of our bodies. Other accounts of sculpture’s effect on bodily self‐awareness have
attempted to do without Vance’s strong claim about identification with sculptures. F.
David Martin (1981), offering a detailed account of the phenomenology of sculpture
appreciation, argues that sculpture enlivens space, sending out forces that create
urges in the viewer to respond with bodily movement. Though we perceive
sculptures visually, he suggests, “[W]e invariably perceive the forces of a sculpture
as if they were pressing on our bodies” (1981: 62). For this reason, “Our body
sensations are part of the unity of the aesthetic experience” of a sculpture (1981:
74). Because sculpture affects our bodies in this way, Martin suggests, it is unique
among the arts in emphasizing our “physical or spatial withness” with things (1981:
134): whereas painting creates a pictorial space from which we are physically
excluded, sculpture heightens our sense of sharing space with and being impinged
on by other things. Martin claims that this is a therapeutic effect in the context of
modern life, which often causes us to feel alienated and distanced from our actual
physical environment.
Martin’s view, like Vance’s, seems better suited to some sculptures than to others.
Not all sculpture obviously “‘bangs’ into our bodies with convergent forces” (Martin
1981: 169), even when we do feel inclined to move around it. Viewers move around
Anish Kapoor’s (2004‐2006) Cloud Gate, a large public sculpture in Chicago, to
explore the varying ways its surface reflects their own bodies, rather than being
moved around by forces the object projects into the surrounding space. It is also
unclear that Martin can make good on his claim that sculpture invariably promotes
our “withness with things.” In his remarks about the representation of women in
sculpture, he says, “Even the most perfect real woman—at least from a male
chauvinist standpoint—is always moving away, or talking too much, or covering up,
or in bad light, or sick, or getting old. The sculptor can make her stand still, shut her
up, strip her, give her good light, and keep her young and healthy” (1981: 167). If a
central function of some sculpture is to realize the sexist project of shutting women
up, stripping them, and forcing their bodies into ageless immobility, it is hard to see
how this helps to secure the audience member’s “withness” with real women or
their bodies. More generally, the idealization of objects or the creation of immersive
spaces through sculpture may, in some instances, distance us from the physical
particularity of the world we live in rather than reconcile us to it. more...
in contrast with the aesthetics of painting. While Adolf von Hildebrand (1907/1893)
suggests that sculpture is distinctive in providing a series of two‐dimensional visible
silhouettes that are apprehended from various locations around the sculpture, most
have thought that touch or bodily awareness plays a special role in the appreciation
of sculpture. Herbert Read, offering an extreme version of such a view, claims that
“[s]culpture is an art of palpation—an art that gives satisfaction in the touching and
handling of objects” (1956: 49) and suggests that when we are unable to touch a
sculpture our appreciation is impeded.
Other writers, while acknowledging a special role for touch and related forms of bodily awareness in the appreciation of sculpture, allow that the activation of this awareness may occur by way of vision. Johann
Gottfried Herder (2002/1778) suggests that we use vision as a substitute for touch
in our apprehension of sculpture: the eye is guided to seek out the information that
the hand desires
We are then able to reconstitute an understanding of the form as a
whole by imaginatively synthesizing the data we have taken in through vision. (See
Zuckert 2009 for detailed discussion.) Herder suggests that the beauty of three‐
dimensional forms, and the pleasure they occasion, belong to touch: the form is felt
(perhaps imaginatively), not seen, as beautiful.
Some writers have objected to the suggestion that sculpture, in contrast to painting,is a distinctively tactile art. Rhys Carpenter (1960) rejects outright the claim that
sculpture appeals to touch rather than to vision, regarding the matter as settled by
the fact that sculptures are made chiefly to be looked at and not felt. Hopkins (2005:
576) notes that paintings, like sculptures, can stimulate tactile imaginings in their
vivid presentation of textures. And Dominic McIver Lopes (1997; 2002) argues that
in principle, there could be tactile pictorial arts; it is merely a contingent fact that
our painting tradition is directed toward vision rather than touch. Several writers, though, have argued that sculpture has a distinctive effect on the perceiver’s bodily awareness. Herder (2002/1778) claimed that we experience imaginative bodily identification with sculptures that depict human bodies, and that
this allows us to grasp the sculpture’s expressive content. Robert D. Vance (1995:
225) suggests that such identification occurs even when the subject of the sculpture
is non‐human or abstract: “I identify with … the sculpture by imagining its apparent features as being experienced by myself,” and then “imagining it as an extension of
[my] own body.”
Vance’s claim that we identify bodily with sculpture seems more plausible for some
works than for others. While Meret Oppenheim’s (1936) Object, a fur‐covered cup,
saucer and spoon, surely affects our bodily self‐awareness, it seems to do so by
provoking us to imagine what it would feel like to use the objects (and tempting us
to touch them), rather than by causing us to experience them as parts or extensions
of our bodies. Other accounts of sculpture’s effect on bodily self‐awareness have
attempted to do without Vance’s strong claim about identification with sculptures. F.
David Martin (1981), offering a detailed account of the phenomenology of sculpture
appreciation, argues that sculpture enlivens space, sending out forces that create
urges in the viewer to respond with bodily movement. Though we perceive
sculptures visually, he suggests, “[W]e invariably perceive the forces of a sculpture
as if they were pressing on our bodies” (1981: 62). For this reason, “Our body
sensations are part of the unity of the aesthetic experience” of a sculpture (1981:
74). Because sculpture affects our bodies in this way, Martin suggests, it is unique
among the arts in emphasizing our “physical or spatial withness” with things (1981:
134): whereas painting creates a pictorial space from which we are physically
excluded, sculpture heightens our sense of sharing space with and being impinged
on by other things. Martin claims that this is a therapeutic effect in the context of
modern life, which often causes us to feel alienated and distanced from our actual
physical environment.
Martin’s view, like Vance’s, seems better suited to some sculptures than to others.
Not all sculpture obviously “‘bangs’ into our bodies with convergent forces” (Martin
1981: 169), even when we do feel inclined to move around it. Viewers move around
Anish Kapoor’s (2004‐2006) Cloud Gate, a large public sculpture in Chicago, to
explore the varying ways its surface reflects their own bodies, rather than being
moved around by forces the object projects into the surrounding space. It is also
unclear that Martin can make good on his claim that sculpture invariably promotes
our “withness with things.” In his remarks about the representation of women in
sculpture, he says, “Even the most perfect real woman—at least from a male
chauvinist standpoint—is always moving away, or talking too much, or covering up,
or in bad light, or sick, or getting old. The sculptor can make her stand still, shut her
up, strip her, give her good light, and keep her young and healthy” (1981: 167). If a
central function of some sculpture is to realize the sexist project of shutting women
up, stripping them, and forcing their bodies into ageless immobility, it is hard to see
how this helps to secure the audience member’s “withness” with real women or
their bodies. More generally, the idealization of objects or the creation of immersive
spaces through sculpture may, in some instances, distance us from the physical
particularity of the world we live in rather than reconcile us to it. more...