Henry Moore

SkyArts recently screened a program entitled The Art of Henry Moore which I recorded and, a few nights ago, watched. Something that I had not realised when recording, was that the commentary was by Henry Moore himself. It was, he said, an introduction to some of the problems that have fascinated him in the course of producing his art. What struck me was that wrapped up in a fascinating reflection on his craft were a number of points, any one of which would have made an excellent discussion point. By which I do not mean that I found them controversial, merely that they might have had much more to give as such. As such I give them here - or teat them merely as thinking points.

• The Mother and Child is one of my inexhaustible subjects. It is eternal. But how does religious art differ from the everyday? Artistically speaking, what is the difference between a Mother and Child and a Madonna and Child? (I give Moore's answer to that question at the bottom of the post.)



• A straight line, a pure curve, solid geometric shapes, the perfect cube are considered to be beautiful, but they are best made by a machine. The artist's concern is with imperfection.



• Sculpture should always have some initial obscurity, some mystery not apparent to the quick observer (actually, all art should), otherwise it is merely an empty immediacy, like a poster intended to be seen and read quickly from the top of a bus.



• My little studio is an important habitat for me. I love its clutter and muddle. It throws up fortuitous associations and can send me off working in an unexpected direction.



• The theory that an artist's work is directly attributable to his imagination is a romantic idea. An artist's gift is that he can reject his imagination.



• Speaking of his air raid shelter drawings (which I had always thought he'd made in situ in the London tube stations), he said: Naturally, I could not draw in the shelters, I drew from memory later at home. It would have been like making sketches in the hold of a slave ship. One couldn't be as disinterested as that. (I thought how different from the present day photo-journalists, some of whom would have gone in close with their lenses.)



• Speaking first of his early interest in primitive art, especially that of Mexico, and then of the revelation that was afforded him by a six month stay in Europe, he explained that it was a long while before he was free to use the lessons of Europe in his art. That was because of the violent way in which they clashed with his pre-existing interests. He then asked: Is this conflict what makes things happen?



• Artists do not need religion. Art is religion. If one believes that all life is significant - and everyone who does not commit suicide has that belief - then one has religion in his art.



• Beauty is a deeper concept than prettiness or niceness, deeper than an arrangement of shapes and colours. People expect perfect craftsmanship, lovely artefacts, but never did I want to produce a beautiful woman, though I do want beauty in my art. (And later) My work is mainly intuitive, not erotic, though I have no objection to others finding it erotic, to others finding in it what I had not realised was there.



• Drawing, even for those who are not good at it, makes you look more intently at the subject. Just looking has no grit in it, no mental struggle or difficulty. That only happens when you are drawing.

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Moore suggested that the difference between a Mother and Child and a Madonna and Child was that the latter should have austerity, nobility and grandeur.