mary buchanan's the thresholdmarble statuary is something i have had very little live experience viewing compared to other classic art works (my focus, or stumbled-upon happenstance falling more towards metal work or painting). every time i come into contact with something in said vein i am shocked. it is such a beautiful way to show bodies. it is such a beautiful material alone.
this sculpture in particular is one that really overwhelms me. it is on display at the kelvingrove art gallery, a rather significant gallery to the area, not to far from whee i live. i have gone to see the threshold specifically twice. i know i will go again.
she is just larger then life sized, carved in the late eighteenth century for a french salon show. i have been unable to find more information regarding the history or the artist, but that information would be beside the point.
the texture, the pose is what is so different to me. her body has been left less than finished, with tiny scrape marks crisscrossing her very finely, volumetrically. this, to me, proves how the work was indeed handmade, a point i will refer back to momentarily. her face and hands however have been worked past this point, and appear so smooth, so perfect that they appear to have been soap, rubbed with a washcloth until nearly dissolved. she is without that hard eyelid line seen on greek sculpture, nor the outline of lips meeting cheek. in fact the line that would be expected to delineate her from the rough stone she sits upon, the stone with which she is made, is also blurred. this is especially so around her hands. when you consider these factors with the pose she sits in, her almost lifelike, almost alive seating, you can see that she is perched on the threshold between art and life. she is so perfect she almost is.
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