Henry Moore: On Being a Sculptor

Every material has its own individual qualities. It is only when the sculptor works direct, when there is an active relationship with his material, that the material can take its part in the shaping of an idea. Stone, for example, is hard and concentrated and should not be falsified to look like soft flesh – it should not be forced beyond its constructive build to a point of weakness. It should keep its hard tense stoniness

And I use drawing as a method of study and observation of natural forms (drawings from life, drawings of bones, shells etc.)

Complete sculptural expression is form in its full spatial reality.

t. I am very much aware that associational, psychological factors play a large part in sculpture. The meaning and significance of form itself probably depends on the countless associations of man’s history. F

mpressiveness.
Sculpture is more affected by actual size considerations than painting. A painting is isolated by a frame from its surroundings (unless it serves just a decorative purpose) and so retains more easily its own imaginary sca

Yet actual physical size has an emotional meaning.

between five and six feet high.

We relate everything to our own size, and our emotional response to size is controlled by the fact that men on the

Abstract qualities of design are essential to the value of a work, but to me of equal importance is the psychological, human elemen

All good art has contained both abstract and surrealist elements, just as it has contained both classical and romantic elements – order and surprise, intellect and imagination, conscious and unconscious.