Directional tension in Marble Statue of the wounded warrior and “The Vine”

Kinetic motion presents an interesting conundrum in the ability of art to express itself, notably through fixed mediums such as sculpture. While sculptors are certainly capable of generating figures that capture a specific point of time in the middle of an action or motion, there is considerable difficulty in projecting the essence of that motion to the viewer on a plane beyond that of simply depicting a pose that could not otherwise be construed as stationary. The means by which the sculptor imbues their art with this kinetic sense seems to correlate directly with tension—specifically in the interplay between the specific poise of the sculpture and the potential energy contained within.

The particular conformations contribute substantially towards the specific interpretation of the qualitative aims of the sculpture. This distillation of the specific appropriation of motion through tension becomes readily apparent in the Marble statue of a wounded warrior, a Roman copy of a bronze Greek piece from 460-450 BC) as an article that enhances and refines the viewer’s reception of the sculpture itself. This portrayal, however, is in stark contrast to the depiction of a dancer caught in the midst of violent motion with arms wreathed in tendrils of greenery, aptly named The Vine, sculpted by Harriet Whitney Frishmuth in 1924. I contend that the use of tension elicits opposite functions in both pieces: where in the former the tension flows downwards and anchors him into the ground, in the latter the tension flows up through the dancer’s body and flows out through the extremities.

Looking straight onto the first sculpture, the lines of the vertical axis belie the displacement of the center of gravity that becomes apparent when viewing him from the side. This stance is inherently unstable, preserved only by physical exertion grounding him against the slope he traverses, which becomes evident in the strain of the back muscles, buttocks, and calves, together providing a sense of potential energy not unlike a coiled spring. This tension between the rigid ground and the hard lines of muscle driving him into the slope as he resides in an otherwise unstable configuration is especially pronounced in the pads of his feet, which are flattened out and dispersed to a nearly inhuman degree. Other figures in the vicinity in poses of either contrapposto or ponderation exhibited much less spreading of the pads on the feet, indicative of their more relaxed stance. The feet, in particular, showcase the extent to which the tension pervades the body, driving him down into the slope on which he walks.

In sharp contrast, the pads of the dancer’s feet were significantly less spread out than one might expect given that the entirety of her weight is propagated onto the balls of her feet. This conveys two different messages, the first of which is that she seems to have just finished springing upwards in motion, as that would take some of the weight off of the feet, and secondly, that since the feet and hands/fingers are comparatively relaxed, the tension in her body resides in the arch of her back and the bend of her core, dispersing as it reaches the extremities. The second interacts especially well with the projection of the center of gravity, as the physical core of her body is displaced to the side of the vertical lines going through the center of gravity, giving the impression that the tension compressed in the middle of her body expands away from the center of gravity. This has the combined effect of both destabilizing the piece, and consequently, creating the sense of the figure exploding away from the ground in all upward directions.

In much the same way that contrapposto can ease the tension in the piece by creating a less rigid S-curve rather than a vertical line through the central axis, the dancer’s torso is slightly off center, which serves to shear off some of the rigidity in her back off to the side as she springs upwards. More importantly, however, because of this tilt, the main portion of her body violates the horizontal plane on which it resides, with the left side of her torso exhibiting an uplift that breaks from an otherwise static position. This visualization is especially important in conjunction with the vines that she carries in her arms and around her body. Greenery, in the form of vines, here is shown draping downwards, being pulled to the ground by the inexorable force of gravity. Combined with the rotation of the side of the torso moving upwards, the sharp distinction between the vines coming downwards and the dancer reaching upwards highlights the manner in which she defies gravity, leading the viewer to see the tension in her body’s resistance as it flows up through her and out through the relaxed hands and fingers of her outstretched arms.

This difference in the directionality of the tension of the pieces has several important implications on the messages the audience receives. Amplified by the situation of the Marble statue of the wounded warrior on a pedestal raising him significantly above eye level, almost as if he were walking down towards you, the downward tension so clearly seen in his stance makes the audience feel as though he is struggling against earthly forces—both physically, in the form of his wounds, and perhaps psychologically as well. His stance, so entrenched in its resistance to motion carries with it an inherent weariness befitting the sense of a soldier having seen the perils of combat and mortal desire. On the other hand, the dancer seems to have been given the opposite qualities by virtue of the tension leaving her body through the upper extremities. The distinctively off kilter center of gravity gives the impression of her being on the edge of falling over or back onto the ground, but the tension in her core is emblematic of her attempts to remain suspended in kinetic motion that defies the downward pull of gravity. Together, these elements create a sense of violent, impassioned movement projecting outwards that is received by the audience as a symbol of the dancer’s attempt to engage herself with something that lies beyond the plane of the mortal body, and indeed, the physical world.

This is paradoxical in some ways—while both of the sculptures clearly display an attempt to portray a more naturalistic body, one could argue that the Marble statue of the wounded warrior is less symbolic of philosophical ideals wedded to the Classical Greek period. It is The Vine that attempts to extend beyond the mortal plane into something less tangible—an ideal, in much the same sense as the Platonic conception of true forms obscured by physical representations. It is the uplift of tension away from the ground that carries forth the sense of aspiring towards an understanding of something distinct from the surrounding physical reality, an effect that is not rendered quite as well by the Marble statue of the wounded warrior, which appears, instead, to have its musings grounded in the flow of potential energy back into the earth.

Marble statue of a wounded warrior

The Vine