Figure (Archaean)

“I think every sculpture must be touched, it’s part of the way you make it and it’s really our first sensibility. It is the sense of feeling, the first one we have when we’re born. I think every person looking at a sculpture should use his own body. You can’t look at a sculpture if you are going to stand stiff as a ramrod and stare at it, with a sculpture you must walk around it, bend toward it, touch it, and walk away from it.” Barbara Hepworth

Barbara Hepworth’s Figure exploits the potential of abstraction. Her sculpture suggests many interpretations, and can look different to different viewers. The title, "Figure", combined with the upright form, suggests a human body. The slashing, angular elements resemble bones like the scapula. The work’s subtitle, "Archaean", refers to a geologic era, 4,000 to 2,500 million years ago. The heavily worked surface matches this subtitle, giving the sculpture an aged appearance like the upright stones of prehistoric monuments such as Stonehenge. Therefore the work may be an imagined atavistic person, a reference to cave art or archaic Greek sculpture. During the Archaean era, the earth’s crust cooled, allowing for the formation of continents. "Figure" expresses this concept with its pierced openings. They frame different views of the landscape around the sculpture, drawing our eye to zero in on things we might not otherwise observe.