L'Enfant endormi, 1906 - 1907
Bronze
Lifetime cast 1908
Lifetime cast 1908
15.2 cm h
Ed. of 6 lifetime casts
L’Enfant endormi is the first sleeping head sculpture in Brancusi’s series of sleeping heads which led him to create more abstract sculptures depicting heads of sleeping children or muses. Both...
L’Enfant endormi is the first sleeping head sculpture in Brancusi’s series of sleeping heads which led him to create more abstract sculptures depicting heads of sleeping children or muses. Both the inspiration for and the actual model itself was Brancusi’s godchild who was born in 1906.
The cutaway right lower jaw as well as the flattened surface of the right cheek enable the piece to be placed either horizontally or in a slightly inclined position by resting it on the side that was cut out. Although the sculpture appears to have a rough image, when viewed in person, its aura communicates the tenderness with which the artist sees and demonstrates love and the force residing in that innocent decency. This is all expressed simultaneously through its fragile form, obscure light, and the naturally expected harmony it is to have with the location where it is displayed.
The architecture, which is essential in sculpture for Brancusi, is recognised in the form and unflappable serenity of a sleeping child’s head. It makes one contemplate a child-pure experience of life and the loss of this child-like purity with the onset of adulthood.
© Cigdem Mirol
The original painted plaster model of L’Enfant endormi is in the Musée National d’Art Moderne in Paris.
The cutaway right lower jaw as well as the flattened surface of the right cheek enable the piece to be placed either horizontally or in a slightly inclined position by resting it on the side that was cut out. Although the sculpture appears to have a rough image, when viewed in person, its aura communicates the tenderness with which the artist sees and demonstrates love and the force residing in that innocent decency. This is all expressed simultaneously through its fragile form, obscure light, and the naturally expected harmony it is to have with the location where it is displayed.
The architecture, which is essential in sculpture for Brancusi, is recognised in the form and unflappable serenity of a sleeping child’s head. It makes one contemplate a child-pure experience of life and the loss of this child-like purity with the onset of adulthood.
© Cigdem Mirol
The original painted plaster model of L’Enfant endormi is in the Musée National d’Art Moderne in Paris.