The Henry Moore Institute in Leeds brings collectively a gaggle of sculptures that have been collected or exhibited in Britain between 1850–1900 for this exhibition, which contends that the growing use of polychromy, in addition to the evolving methods wherein male sculptors represented the feminine type, can each be understood as reflections of the social anxieties of the Victorian interval. British sculptors started to shift away from neoclassical white marble to include bronze, silver, gold, ivory and semi-precious stones – a response to new discoveries in regards to the classical previous and to the Gothic Revival, but in addition a sign of a vogue for exoticism that was at play, too, within the growing sexualisation of the feminine determine. The beliefs of female purity offered in works corresponding to Antonio Canova’s Venus (often called the Hope Venus; 1817–20) seem in stark distinction to sculptures created within the latter half of the century. As an example, George Frampton, a member of the New Sculpture motion, was typical of his period in depicting Keats’s Lamia as a menacing femme fatale in his sculpture of 1899–1900. Representations of Black girls have been usually notably sexualised throughout a interval of accelerating imperial exercise in Africa; on show right here is Charles Cordier’s Vénus Africaine (1852), with the determine’s beaded coral necklace and gilded earring reinforcing the general impression of exoticism. As such, the exhibition considers the position of color in Victorian sculpture by way of each an aesthetic and a social lens, to state the case for these works as each an embodiment and a mirrored image of speedy societal change. Discover out extra on the Henry Moore Institute’s web site.

Discover out extra on the Henry Moore Institute’s web site.

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Lamia (1899–90), George Frampton. Photograph: Paul Higham; © Royal Academy of Arts, London

The Manacled Slave/On the Sea Shore (1877), John Bell. Photograph: © Aberystwyth College College of Artwork Museum and Galleries

Vénus Africaine (1852), Charles Cordier. Photograph: © His Majesty King Charles III 2022