Fish
Constantin Brâncuși
Romanian and French, born Romania. 1876–1957
Paris 1930
A polished blue-gray marble sculpture in which Brâncuși reduces a fish to a flattened, aerodynamic oval, aiming to capture the creature’s essential form rather than a literal likeness.
At first glance the spare, smooth ellipse appears to hover—its thin, winglike plane pierced by pale veins and meticulously balanced on simple cylindrical supports, conveying both motion and calm.
By stripping a subject to its pure form and emphasizing direct carving and balance, Brâncuși helped define modernist abstraction and opened a path toward Minimalist concerns with geometry, essence, and presence.
Medium
Blue-gray marble 21 x 71 x 5 1/2" (53.3 x 180.3 x 14 cm), on three-part pedestal of one marble 5 1/8" (13 cm) high, and two limestone cylinders 13" (33 cm) high and 11" (27.9 cm) high x 32 1/8" (81.5 cm) diameter at widest point
Classification
Department
Credit
Acquired through the Lillie P. Bliss Bequest (by exchange)
Accession
695.1949.a-d
Palette
Exhibitions
