Auguste Rodin's Walking Man And T. E. U. C. A.

Meng Yuan
Professor George Baker
TA Megan Metcalf
Art History 54
Dec.6.2012
Formal Analysis: Sculpture With significant differences in shapes, volumes, texture and settings, Auguste Rodin’s Walking Man and Richard Serra’s T.E.U.C.L.A., two conspicuous sculptures in UCLA sculpture garden, both demonstrate the combination of movement and stillness to viewers. Though, Rodin’s sculpture mainly represents it through a posture of a body in motion, while Serra tries to represent it by creating an immobile metal-like mass. Rodin’s sculpture represents a bronzy man’s strong body without head and arms. The man is standing on the ground, opening his legs. It is two-meters high, bigger and stronger than ordinary people. On the contrary, Serra
creates a brick red, nameless giant object, which is a four-meters high, slant and hollow cylinder with one-meter gap on its wall.
At first glance, nothing seems strange besides the extremely brawny muscles that exist throughout his whole body. However, when having a closer observation, I notice that his upper body is facing towards an abnormal direction. As all know, while walking, one’s arm’s direction should be different from that of his legs. To be more specific, when his right arm is toward ahead during walking, his right leg should be back from the body. However, in Rodin’s sculpture, the Walking Man acts abnormally: his right arm, which has been removed, put forward his body, as well as his right leg does. Also, the man’s waist is bending to the left, which makes it looks like that his right arm is bearing weight. Looking down at his legs, we can also see the contour of his leg-muscles. The lines are curved, making the muscle of his lap protrude from his skin. Walking to his behind area, we can see the clear contours the muscles of back and the curved line that shows the man’s back is bending toward his chest. These features show us, although his arms are removed, that the sculpture may push something while walking. Every
muscle of the body, from head to toe, is clearly carved on the uneven body surface, and these muscles all seem tighten up, giving strength- even his muscle of buttock does. It is tightening up, causing a small area of concavity on it. Moreover, the ground on which his feet stand, recesses from the surrounding area because of pressure from his feet, proving that his body was bearing force from external. I also notice that Rodin exaggerates the feet, which look extraordinarily big- it is an artistic way to show this body is. By distorting this body and removing the arms and head, Rodin shows his concentration on the body shape that represents the state of motion, and his willing to represent the strength, instead of any particular personality of a man. Rodin passes the dynamic power to viewers through this sculpture, which depicts a strangely motional body in a particular moment.

When standing in front of Serra’s T.E.U.C.L.A., one must feel the pressure from it since it is about four meters high.
Unlike the complicated muscle lines on Walking Man, simple curves, two thick sheets consist Serra’s sculpture. It stands there, motionlessly, making viewers recognize the tininess of their own bodies. Making the one-meter wide gap become the central of my visual field and observing it as a two-dimensional flat, I see this sculpture as a parallelogram with two lines vertical to the ground. Ingeniously, I find this sculpture “change” while walking around it: when standing on the left of it, if we regard the side, which the gap stands in the central, as the front, this sculpture becomes a trapezoid as well as when we stand on the right of it; however, the upper edge is longer than the lower edge when we look from its right side, in contrast to its left; when standing behind it, it becomes a parallelogram again, but leans toward a different direction. It is what it is and has no models, unlike Walking Man. This lifeless object, stands there, and shows viewers different scenes without any motion. Moreover, I walk into its hollow interior through the vertical gap, to make it surround me. While standing inside this sculpture, I cannot see its shape but see the red wall in all directions. In some directions, the wall bends out while in others it bends toward my body, but each vision brings viewers pressure. Simple curves and still sculpture create changeable
outlooks- Serra makes this giant and immobile object into a motion state.

Also, the textures in both sculptures are different. Rodin’s sculpture has a smooth surface, which gleams to viewers’ eyes. In people's preconception, this kind of surface is polished again and again, such as the stones in rivers- they have been stayed in the river, scoured by the water for years before they become smooth; thus, this kind of texture makes people experience the process of polishing the sculpture. Presenting the effects created by the time, the sculpture’s surface implies the manufacturing process. Rodin successfully launches the sculpture into motion. However, the solid texture also reminds me that this body, unlike that of human, is immortal. The contradiction of the nature of the figure and its texture shows a combination of movement and stillness since sculpture, the medium itself represents a sense of permanence.

Serra’s sculpture has a surface that looks like rusty iron. This thick brick red sheet’s surface makes the sculpture seem to have the weight and strength of metal. In our preconception, a metal object in such immense size, which is inset in the sand, cannot be pushed or moved by manpower. The shape and texture remind viewers of anchor- a heavy object used to stop a ship since anchor’s surface is also rusty because of remaining in water for a long time. It explains why people feel the immobile and solid strength from it at first glace. What’s more, the surface is rough. As all know, the rougher something is, the greater force of friction it produces, and the harder it is to be moved. Serra creates a sense of stability by the metal-like texture. When I walk into this mass through the gap, I found lots of doodles on the inside wall: some of them are freshly painted and others are gradually faded. When setting as a medium, this sculpture is never completed; that is, it keeps changing and has no sustainable position because it is continuously editing by others. Moreover, Not only does the rusty-like surface imply immobility, but also tells viewers that it is changing. Iron will rust as time goes by. The artificial rusty texture tries to lead people to imagine how it looks like before it went rusty. Therefore, besides different looks created by different viewing perspective, this sculpture has a different look in the past and now. Serra creates a sense of the passing of time, making the sculpture become volatile.

Rodin’s Walking Man is set on an outdoor passageway before the building of film school, where people keep passing by. Its body contrasts with those of the passing people, appealing to be particularly muscular. The natural highlights the muscle bulges and darkens the muscle line, to make the body looks more brawny. The sculpture is about two-meters high, higher than most ordinary people. Unlike other sculptures, which are mostly set on the side of walk, it becomes extremely conspicuous since everyone around it keeps moving. The stability of it is enforced in such situation. On the contrary, the surrounding sculptures promote Walking Man to be the embodiment of movement. I notice that two sculptures nearest it in the sculpture garden are women bodies, with smooth lines of breasts and waists, standing or lying, with their postures having no sign of movement. When viewers observe the Walking Man in distance, standing in the sculpture garden, these women bodies will exist in their visions, constituting a sharp contrast with Walking Man. Therefore, when viewers cannot clearly see the muscle line on Rodin’s sculpture, they are still able to perceive the sense of motion from its posture since other surroundings’ gestures are stable.

Since there is lots of trees surround the two sculptures, the shadows become an crucial part of the sculpture. Experience of looking at them in different times various. The shadows of the trees on them move as time goes by in a day. In the morning, the sculpture have no shadows on it since the sun has not risen up; at noon, when I standing in front of it, the right half of the sculpture is covered by some sporadic shadow, but when the shadows extend to the left half of it, they become few strips. The changeable surfaces caused by its surrounding trees also reinforce the movement that Serra attaches in the sculpture.

In short, Rodin’s Walking Man and Serra’s T.E.U.C.L.A. both display a combination of movement and stability. Rodin’s Walking Man presents a sense of stability through its smooth surface and the contradiction with surroundings while the clear muscle lines, the surrounding sculptures and the reflections of sunlight enforce the strength of the movement. As for T.E.U.C.L.A., the changeable outlooks determined by the perspective direction, the incomplete wall doodled by passing people, and the various shadows on it in different times of a day, make the sculpture versatile, but the huge size, the thick and metal-like texture, and the red brick surface make it stable and permanent.