This was my first commissioned work, it's called "The Prayer". I made it 1907, just a couple of years after my short, 2 month stint at Rodin's studio.
http://img40.imageshack.us/img40/562/22810constantinbrancusi.jpg
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I was aware of what was going on in the art society - 1907 was a significant year for the art world, and many masters of modern art movements. It was the year of the great Cezanne memorial exhibition, and the year that Matisse exhibited his epochal Joie de Vivre, and Picasso showed his painting Demoiselles d'Avignon, the painting that launched Cubism. I however, did not mix with that crowd.
For this sculpture, I started with a violently agitated figure of a woman that was reminiscent of Rodin, put it through successive 'reductions', and finally arrived at this simplified, motionless figure of a kneeling woman, which I cast in bronze.
This sculpture was commissioned for a funeral monument in Rumania, and was the work provided 'salvation' - a way forward to a new sculptural language, contrary to popular belief that it was "The Kiss". Compared to my other works, this perhaps still has a little trace of Rodin's influence; I must clarify - I did not leave his studio due to lack of respect for him, on the contrary, I had much admiration for the great sculptor Auguste Rodin, but as they say, "Nothing can grow under big trees".
Although it is conventional in form, I am rather pleased with the calm and smoothed-over details. It is a style that I like to work with.