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
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
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