Jean Arp or Hans Arp was a famous German born French sculptor, poet and painter associated with dada, surrealism and abstraction. He is best known for his sculpture that has been broken down to its simplest forms, to rounded abstract objects that point towards nature, the human figure, and organic forms. Famous Jean Arp artworks include “Human Concretion”, “Shirt Front and Fork”, “Cloud-shepherd”, “Tree of Shells”, “Evocation of a Form: Human, Lunar, Spectral”, “Abstract Composition”, “The Sun Recircled”, “Birds in an Aquarium”, “Bell and Navels”, and “Pagoda Fruit”.
Mini biography: Born Hans Peter Wilhelm Arp on the 16th of September, 1886 in Straßburg, Alsace-Lorraine, German Empire. His mother was French and his father was German. Arp married the Swiss artist Sophie Henriette Gertrud Taeuber in 1922 and she died in 1943. He married his second wife Marguerite Hagenbach in 1959. The artist died on the 7th of June, 1966 in Basel, Switzerland at the age of 79. Jean Arp is buried at the Cimitero di Locarno in Locarno, Ticino, Switzerland.
Collection of Famous Jean Arp Art Quotes
I wanted to create new appearances, to extract new forms from man. Jean Arp
Concretion signifies the material process of condensation, hardening, coagulating, thickening, growing together. Concretion designates the solidification of a mass. Concretion designates curdling, the curdling of the earth and the heavenly bodies. Concretion designates solidification, the mass of the stone, the plant, the animal, the man. Concretion is something that has grown. I want my work to find it. Jean Arp
Art is a fruit that grows in man, like a fruit on a plant, or a child in its mother’s womb. Jean Arp
We do not wish to copy nature. We do not want to reproduce, we want to produce. We want to produce as a plant produces a fruit and does not itself reproduce. We want to produce directly and without meditation. As there is not the least trace of abstraction in this art, we will call it concrete art. Jean Arp
A painting or sculpture not modeled on any real object is every bit as concrete and sensuous as a leaf or a stone. Jean Arp
Reason tells man to stand above nature and to be the measure of all things. Thus man thinks he is able to live and to create against the laws of nature and he creates abortions. Through reason man became a tragic and ugly figure. I dare say he would create even his children in the form of vases with umbilical cords if he could do so. Reason has cut man off from nature. Jean Arp
All things, and man as well, should be like nature, without measure. Jean Arp
The man who speaks and writes about art should refrain from censuring or pontificating. He will thus avoid doing anything foolish, for in the presence of primordial depth all art is but dream and nature. Jean Arp
Revolted by the butchery of the 1914 World War, we in Zurich devoted ourselves to the arts. While guns rumbled in the distance, we sang, painted, made collages and wrote poems with all our might. We were seeking an art based on fundamentals, to cure the madness of the age, and find a new order of things that would restore the balance between heaven and hell. We had a dim premonition that power-mad gangsters would one day use art itself as a way of deadening men’s minds. Jean Arp
Art should melt into and even merge with nature itself. This is obviously contrary to painting and sculpture based on nature. By so doing, art will rid itself more and more of self-centredness, virtuosity and absurdity. Jean Arp
What interests us is the Dada spirit and we were all Dada before the existence of Dada. The first Holy Virgins I painted date from 1886, when I was a few months old and amused myself by pissing graphic impressions. The morality of idiots and their belief in geniuses makes me shit. Jean Arp
Jean Arp Sculpture
More on Famous French Artist Jean Arp
How has Jean Arp influenced your art making? Is he one of your favorite famous French sculptors? Let us know what you think about Jean Arp in the comments below.
Related or similar popular artists include: Henry Moore || Barbara Hepworth || Isamu Noguchi || Piet Mondrian || Brancusi || Jean Dubuffet, and other Famous French Sculptors.
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.