And on a less formal note -
I was educated at Hertford Grammar School and St. Edmund Hall, Oxford. Between these two I went to art school – but left after a week. Following Oxford, I joined the family farming business and started to sculpt in my spare time. Eventually someone suggested that I sell my work through craft fairs, where fortunately I attended one attached to the Hampton Court Flower Show. The following year I exhibited within the show itself, and the year after that at Chelsea. I exhibited with the Royal Horticultural Society for ten years, which introduced me to the commissioning process and gave me a broad-based clientele. The rest, as they say, is history (which I have summarized above).
At this point, I suppose I should attach the obligatory “artist statement.” I don't like the term, which seems to me to be pompous; nor do I like many of the statements I have seen, which are often wordy, turgid and pretentious, even when intelligible. However, I suppose it is useful to say something about one's approach and where it comes from – so here it is, call it what you will!
People tend to think of my work as “impressionistic” because of its finish, in which I wish to show the way in which the clay is worked, and also to leave its completion to the imagination of the spectator. Although I have undoubtedly been influenced by sculptors such as Rodin, Dalou, and more importantly, Daumier, the similarity is a chance one, and my greatest debt is to Michelangelo, who of course also influenced them. One of my most formative memories is standing in front of his sculpture of Evening in the Medici chapel, and wondering why it seemed to me to breathe. I think it arose from two causes; the conscious creation of internal rhythms, and instability within an essentially static pose. One of the problems of modern figurative art has been the influence of photography, which by freezing the moment has taught us how movement takes place; but it has led to an art which can be lifeless. Where movement is everything; when the attempt is to depict it at its summit, the energy is already spent. The moment before energy is released is far more powerful, and it seems to me that Michelangelo’s work is full of life because he depicts potential rather than kinetic energy. Additionally, much modern art has been influenced by Primitivism, and much primitive art is static. In reacting against the classical tradition, the movement lost that sense of internal rhythm which was such an important discovery of the Renaissance.
Most of my work is to commission, and I value the artist client relationship. Over the past two hundred years, artistic freedom and “self-expression” have dominated attitudes, and artists have felt themselves to be more important than employed craftsmen. But the value of self-expression can be overestimated. As St. Chrysostom said, the human soul is like a wood-shaving, coiled round its inner emptiness. Input from others is imperative for thought to take place. Too close a proximity to one’s own creation can easily prevent one seeing the wood for the trees. Artists have always known that they have to stand back from their work, and sometimes, to get a fresh perspective, they will look at it in a mirror. But there is no different perspective more revealing than the perspective of someone else. Working with others and being challenged by their ideas is a way of progressing one’s own thoughts, and one which makes the relationship between artist and client supremely valuable for the artist. Were it not for that relationship, Michelangelo would not have painted the Sistine ceiling. Personally, I would not have considered undertaking many of the works which I have produced. My first love is for the human form, but it would have been a loss not to have experienced the pleasure of being an animalier.
In recent years, where I have had the good fortune to gain an increasing number of public commissions, my respect for the commissioning process has increased. I have had to relate to and interact with not just individual but community involvement, and I have become convinced that the most valuable art is a joint creation of the artist and the society in which and for which he works.
Copyright © 2014 by Rodney Munday