David Smith: Illusion In The 3rd Dimension

Just as an individual develops a personality which defines his characteristic approach to the problems of living, artists develop a manner of handling visual problems which characterizes all their work. Many artists commit themselves to presenting solution to problems of representation with a specific style. It seems particularly true, in the twentieth century's rapidly shifting waves of fashion, that many of these artists capsize and sink.

A few commit themselves to the exploration and expression of specific problems which intrigue them, rather than to a manner of presenting solutions. Throughout their careers, they approach these problems from many points of view and in very individual ways. These artists are often as inventive at creating new ways to formulate questions as they are at finding the answers. Their individual works can never be more to them than an incomplete exploration of the subject. Yet the very fact that the pieces tend to provoke questions rather than provide answers lends greater intrinsic interest to them.

David Smith's persistent interest in the illusion of two dimensionality in sculpture unifies his total production. Smith's sculpture never encourages the viewer to move around it or see it as an object with volume. His sculpture is designed, like painting and drawing, to be viewed from only one position. In one of his earliest works, Saw Head (1933), the over-all visual context is two dimensional, with the mouth and eye as obvious examples of the use of three dimensional form to suggest flat surface and line. Even the more three dimensional features, such as the nose, suggest two dimensional shading rather than full forms in space.

By the 1940's, Smith had begun to explore the Analytical Cubists' idea of analyzing a three dimensional object into various views and recomposing it in an illusionary two dimensional picture plane. The Analytical Cubists reveal several views of the subject in juxtaposition, intending to provide a more complete, immediate knowledge of the object. To represent a cup, the Cubist painter might juxtapose a view of one side with a full view of the bottom, in the same picture plane.

This Cubist idea inspired Smith, in works like Structure of Arches (1939), to break down the elements of his subject into two dimensional forms and reassemble them into a visually two dimensional whole which nonetheless occupies three dimensional space. In Structure of Arches, Smith uses a very different stylistic approach than in Saw Head. He composed Saw Head out of found objects whereas he designed the parts for Structure of Arches ahead of time and fabricated them to fit his design. In addition, Structure of Arches has no organic allusion, as Saw Head does. Structure of Arches is very angular and its conception has an air of calculated, almost scientific, remove. Nonetheless, Structure of Arches has the same illusion of two dimensionality as Saw Head. The total sculpture, in spite of its actual volume, can be seen as a two dimensional composition of flat surface and line because the uniform two dimensionality of the individual parts gives the total work an overwhelming sense of planarity.

In the mid-forties, Smith explored this illusionary effect of two dimensionality in a new way with a small welded piece called Head as Figure. Here, Smith made three planar compositions and put them together at right angles. By visual association, the flatness of each of these three units gives the total sculpture an over-all illusion of two dimensionality. If the viewer forgets, for the moment, what he knows about the volume of the sculpture he can see it as a two dimensional composition.

In 1950 and 1951, Smith did a number of monumental sized sculptures in which he drew flat figures using metal strips as line. In Australia (1951), the basic description of the figure is strictly two dimensional. This over-all quality forces the viewer to see even the volumetric elements which expand out beyond the picture plane, as part of the same two dimensional surface.

The two dimensional effect of these sculptures is heightened by the continuity of space -- the absence of distractions -- which a landscape, the sky in particular, provides. Most of Smith's sculpture done after 1950 demands to be seen outdoors.

Smith's late works move freely in a full three dimensional space. They rely upon visual illusions to force the viewer to see the works as if they occupy a single plane. In Zig VII, the over-all context of the piece, created by the individual parts, is planar and hence the flat discs tend to suggest two dimensional representation of perpective rather than a tangible volumetric depth.

This tendency is devleoped further in the Cubi series in which Smith adds the use of surfaces in shadow to suggest two dimensional shading. The elaborate buffing in Cubi XXVIII emphasizes the surface instead of the volume, and the sculpture gives an illusionary effect of two dimensionality. This effect is increased because the piece cannot be viewed in the round; the composition demands that it be seen from a specific position. In addition, the welding technique tends to stress the edges between planes. The welds darken and suggest the lines of a drawing which are used to separate the planes in the representation of a three dimensional object. In Cubi I, the surfaces of the forms in shadow do not appear to go back into space behind the illuminated surfaces, instead they seem to be darker forms in the same plane which suggest shadow. In Cubi XXVIII, Smith, using this planar illusion, forces the viewer to see even the cylindrical forms as flat.

The Wagons, which Smith undertook at the end of his life, have a more playful quality than most of his previous sculptures. The wheels and the lightness of the forms add a greater sensation of motion. But these pieces also attempt to maintain the planar illusion of Smith's previous sculpture. Wagon I teases the viewer with a very full three dimensional, melonlike form in the center of the composition which is made to appear flat by a combination of the planar surfaces of the wheels, the linear effect of the bar on which the forms rests, and the strong effect of planar perspective in the rectangle on top.

Smith's interest in the illusion of two dimensionality in three dimensional space unifies his sculpture. The lack of uniformity in his formal style only adds to his interest, and combined with his exhuberance and inventiveness, it makes him one of the most exciting sculptors of his generation