Professor Jean Louis Rodolphe Agassiz 1878

This is a marble bust of Professor Jean Louis Rodolphe Agassiz, made by Preston Powers. Marble is the star here. Its inherent qualities of whiteness, weight, and coolness lend the sculpture its gravitas. But marble doesn't yield its form easily; it demands skilled labor to extract it from the earth, and more to carve it. The sculptor must have been equipped with a full complement of chisels, rasps and polishing cloths, which is a study of craft tradition in itself. The material is tied to social issues of labor and politics: we might think about the lives of the quarrymen who extracted this block, or the economics of patronage that allowed Powers to devote himself to this demanding process. Considering the materials and the making reminds us of the work that goes into every artwork, and how traditional distinctions between art and craft can obscure as much as they reveal.