Alyssa Dumire, Director of Education
If you visited FWMoA last August, you may have caught our newest Chihuly chandelier mid-installation, its spiky metal base exposed. This is its armature, which is defined as the underlying structure of an artwork, usually sculpture, providing strength and stability. It is akin to a skeleton, and for figurative sculpture, often resembles one.
Perhaps you’ve made a pinata from a balloon and papier-mâché. That balloon, popped and removed once the outside dried, was an armature. Soft, malleable materials like clay and papier-mâché require a sturdier skeleton. Ceramic sculptures often use aluminum wire, which is stiff enough to hold its shape but flexible enough to be bent into a rough gesture. The wire is attached to a base, usually wood, then the artist can begin adding clay. Like the balloon armature above, because ceramic sculptures are generally hollowed out before firing, the armature is removed along with the excess clay once the exterior of the form is solid enough to hold its own weight.
Small-scale bronze sculptures like the ones displayed around FWMoA don’t require an armature in their finished form as the metal is strong enough to stand on its own. An armature would have still been an essential, however, early in the process of sculpting an original in clay. By contrast, larger metal sculptures are often hollow to save on weight and materials, necessitating some extra support. The Statue of Liberty’s outer copper shell is only about the thickness of a penny with an iron armature underneath built to precisely fit the skin while still allowing it to expand and contract with temperature changes, a feat of engineering on such a large scale.
While most sculptural materials are opaque, hiding their inner structure from view, the translucency of glass usually reveals…more glass! Hot-sculpted glass hardens quickly enough as it cools to support its own weight, thus most sculpture using the medium doesn’t use an armature. The exception is when, like the Chihuly chandelier above, multiple glass components are assembled to create the finished work. In both the Lily Gold Chandelier and Amber and Waterford Chandelier, the glass is dense enough to almost completely hide its armature. However, the clear glass of Simon Maberley’s The Manipulator reveals its inner workings, a system of metal cables and bolts that hold the whole thing together.
Simon Maberley, Australian, b. 1971. The Manipulator. Articulated glass, blown and molded with metal elements, 1996. Gift of Peter Debreceny and Jane Humz, 2020.151.
Armatures are not actually limited to sculpture: for artists working in two dimensions, they can serve a similar purpose, providing an underlying compositional structure for paintings and drawings. Among the simplest 2D armature systems is the rule of thirds, in which lines divide the work into a three-by-three grid. Placing the horizon along one line, points of interest at the intersections, and otherwise using the grid to determine placement creates a pleasing composition. Note how each area of Lucy Seaton’s photo below occupies roughly one-third: the street in the foreground, house and yard in the middle ground, and trees and sky in the background.
While the rule of thirds is simple enough to be instinctive for many artists, others intentionally utilize more complex frameworks to organize their paintings or drawings. Combining mathematics and aesthetics, other armatures are based on the golden ratio or Fibonacci spiral. The harmonic armature is another popular version that appears very complicated with its series of intersecting lines but is really quite simple: the lines connect the midpoints and corners of the artwork, vertically, horizontally, and diagonally. Without a sketch or an x-ray, we can’t say for sure that Karl Anderson knowingly used this system in the painting below, but laying it overtop reveals its alignment in several places.
Whether intentionally applied by the artist or not, compositional armatures reveal artists’ inherent understanding of how to create visual harmony. Knowing how artists use armatures, both 2D and 3D, helps us better understand their process, both in terms of physical structure and aesthetic decisions. See if you can spot any armatures in action on your next visit to FWMoA!