The Captain's Sculpture, parts 41 - 44

41. According to Mrs. Festini, my mistake was that I was trying to shape the individual parts, such as an arm or a leg, without ever being aware of the unseen, basic shape of the entire figure.

 

42. She explained the geometry of the figure to me in great detail, but I had to pretend to understand what it was she was saying, because I had no idea what the basic underlying shape of a shape could possibly be.

43. She showed me books of the paintings of Cezanne, and all the time she was gesturing and saying things about cubes and spheres, and how that was the basis of cubism, and how cubism is the basis of correct drawing, painting and sculptures.

44. She was not the only person obsessed with this odd concept, because I discovered numerous drawing instruction books in the library filled up with sketches in which you could see that the artist was trying to build up a figure drawing out of a pile of partly erased bricks and cinder-blocks.