The current exhibition of 127 sculptures at the Yokohama Museum of Art is not only interesting from an artistic point of view, but also provides a fascinating insight into much of the intellectual Sturm und Drang of the 20th century.
Sculpture has always lagged behind the more mercurial art of painting. This is because the canvas allows artists to conveniently fix their visions within one viewpoint, while paint offers less resistance than stone or bronze to the expression of that vision. When the Impressionist-led revolution shook the art world in the late 19th century, the traditional art of sculpture, like a huge statue, also began to teeter.
The key figure at this time was Auguste Rodin. His sometimes rough and seemingly unfinished works were often lumped together with the paintings of the Impressionists. His "Walking Man" (1900), a pair of legs held together by a broken torso, shows the urge to escape from the shackles of neat representation and to focus on essence.