Pablo Gargallo was an early pioneer of avant-garde sculpture, cutting figures from sheet metal and being interested in tribal art which influenced his unique style. Julio Gonzalez was a skilled blacksmith who established iron sculpture as a new art form, using rods and surfaces to represent volume and penetrate figure and space. Alexander Calder was known for his delicate wire sculptures, from toy-like mobiles to large-scale kinetic sculptures using color and movement. Alberto Giacometti engaged with surrealism in his work from the 1930s onward, producing elongated and slim figures to accurately depict the human form from a distance in space through perspective and scale.

1. Avant-Garde Sculpture (II) Revision

2. Evolution The decisive step towards modern sculpture consisted of the addition of combination and construction to previous methods of sculpting and modelling. The use of sheet iron and wires was connected with it.

3. Gargallo Pablo Gargallo was already cutting figures and masks out of sheet copper. Interested in tribal art, he may have linked the Spanish tradition with observation of hammered and chased African metalwork. He made of it his own speciality.

4. Gargallo He used the assemblage technique to create his images. The emptiness of some areas doted his work of great drama. He avoided the use of symmetry and some of his images are full of strength such as The Prophet .

5. Julio Gonzalez Julio Gonzalez was an expert blacksmith Gonzalez’s works established the new art form of iron sculpture. Owing to the material and the technique, the volume of a figure was reproduced by rods reaching into and surrounding space, by surfaces and rounded walls.

6. Julio Gonzalez His work involved an inner penetration of figure and space that Gonzalez made the principle of his sculpture. The representations became, if not exactly abstract, at least figurative spatial diagrams

7. Calder He was the artist who produced the most delicate wire sculpture. This mechanical engineer invented the toy like party mobile wire figures more suited to him.

8. Calder He put into practice the futuristic programme of sculpture made mobile with the help of hand- or motor-driven apparatuses. His forms are combined with primary colours or are just a collection of wires. He also produced big format sculptures.

9. Giacometti During his formation he knew Rodin’s work, and when he went to Paris he entered in contact with all the previous avant-garde sculpture attempts. He knew from ethnic works to those of the most important artists of the moment (Matisse, Picasso, Brancusi).

10. Giacometti He entered in contact with the surrealist and due to this his sculptures live because of their significant plastic formulation and the endless possible ways of interpreting them. His work in the thirties acquired the disturbing dimension which characterizes the Surrealism.

11. Giacometti From 1935 to 1945 he sought to reproduce the outward appearance of figures and heads as we see them in reality: in the distance, in space, as a part of a much larger field of vision. He strove to introduce perspective into sculpture, making use of the methods employed by painters, such as a decrease in size and vaguer definition as the distance increases, large bases to set the figures off.

12. Giacometti He discovered that making distant figures smaller was an unsatisfactory way of recreating reality. He found that the more accurate way of depicting people was their extreme elongation and slimness. His images are armatures of iron rods and plaster. His work sometimes remembers the finish used by Rodin in Caen’s Bourgeoisies.