EPSTEIN’S STATUE

Dominion, Volume 31, Issue 70, 16 December 1937, Page 3

EPSTEIN’S STATUE

Devoid Of Dramatic

Feeling

in two-and-a-half tons of Derbyshire alabaster Epstein has carved a recumbent figure, entitled “Consummatum Est,’’ representing the dead Christ after the descent ft-m© the Cross. It was included in an exhibition of the sculptor’s work at the Leicester Galleries, London.

The figure, said T. W. Earp in the “Daily Telegraph,” lies enrobed with head slightly raised and arms along the body, the open hands palms upward, These and the feet show where the nails have pierced. For all its size, the work is unimpressive. It is curiously devoid of the dramatic feeling that emanated from “Behold The Alan.”

The visage is a formal mask, completing the general effect of an exercise in the Romanesque manner. The whole is too stylised to be realistic and literal; too impersonal to appeal to the imagination by suggesting an emotion. 'Those to whom a chance of being shocked makes the attraction of Epstein’s work will be sadly disappointed. This formal essay in a sculptural tradition is so artificial an affair that it.; interest is confined to questions of craft.

The carving is masterly, but the desire to take full advantage of so exceptionally large a block of his beautiful material has caused the sculptor to use too big a scale. This gives the pose a dull inertia instead of the sense of peace.

Though forearms aud sides have graceful line, there is no rhythmic continuity. From no angle of vision, even from a ladder, does the figure make its impression In completeness. As regard tragic purport, the conventional blank mask of the face clashes with the pathos of tlie upturned hands. It is worth noting that the work cannot possibly lie judged from reproductions, which falsify proportions of detail. The details are not distorted beyond legitimate emphasis, but the problem of composing them together has not been overcome. In the problem’s intricacy the human element has been lost.