The Sculptor Speaks
Appreciation of sculpture depends upon the ability to respond to form in three dimensions. That is perhaps why sculpture has been described as the most difficult of all arts; certainly it is more difficult than the arts which involve appreciation of flat forms, shape in only two dimensions. Many more people are 'form-blind' than colour-blind. The child learning to see, first distinguishes only two-dimensional shape; it cannot judge distances, depths. Later, for its personal safety and practical needs, it has to develop (partly by means of touch) the ability to judge roughly three-dimensional distances. But having satisfied the requirements of practical necessity, most people go no further. Though they may attain considerable accuracy in the perception of flat form, they do not make the futher intellectual and emotional effort needed to comprehend form in its full spatial existence.
That is what the sculptor must do. He must strive continually to think of, and use, form in its full spatial completeness. He gets the soild shape, as it were, inside his head -- he thinks of it, whatever its size, as if he were holding it completely enclosed in the hollow of his hand. He mentally visualizes a complex form from all round itself; he knows while he looks at one side what the other side is like; he identifies himself with its centre of gravity, its mass, its weight; he realizes its volume, as the space that the shape displaces in the air.
And the sensitive observer of sculpture must also learn to feel shape simply as shape, not as description or reminiscence. He must, for example, perceive an egg as a simple single solid shape, quite apart from its significance as food, or from the literary idea that it will become a bird. And so with solids such as a shell, a nut, a plum, a pear, a tadpole, a mushroom, a mountain peak, a kidney, a carrot, a tree-trunk, a bird, a bud, a lark, a ladybird, a bulrush, a bone. From these he can go on to appreciate more complex forms of combinations of several forms.
欣赏雕塑需要对三维物体的感知能力。这大概就是为什么雕塑被认为是最难的艺术形式。它确实要比那些仅设计二维平面的形式要复杂许多。对“形状”缺乏感知的人比对“颜色”缺乏的人要多许多。婴儿首先看到并区分的是二维的形状，他们不能判断距离与深度。随着实际的需要，通过触摸他们开始粗略地判断三维世界中的距离。但许多人仅仅是满足实际的需要而不会更进一步去研究。尽管人们可能对与平面的感觉会相当准确，他们从智力上和感情上都不会进一步去理解在空间中的实际存在。
而这正是雕刻家必须做的。他必须努力思考并使用物体在空间中的完整形态。他得到一个固体的形状，会思考它的大小，就象这个物体完全掌握在他的手中。他心中将复杂的物体抽象出来。当他观察一边时，就知道另一边是什么样子的。他独自判断物体的中心，质量，重量，他了解物体的体积，就象在空间中所展示的那样。
一个有着敏锐观力的雕刻家必须掌握仅仅从形状就能感知形状，而不是通过描述或者记忆力。例如，他必须把一个鸡蛋认为是一块简单的固体，而不是作为显而易见的事物，也不能从文学角度上来说，将它认为是一只小鸟。因此根据一些三维体，如贝壳，坚果，李子，梨，蝌蚪，蘑菇，山峰，菜豆，胡萝卜，树干，鸟，花蕾，云雀，瓢虫，芦苇，骨头等等，通过这些他可以观察到更复杂的组合形态。
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