Man Tying up a Bear 1906

Here is a bronze sculpture of a man struggling to tie up a bear made by Carl Bonnesen. I wonder what Bonnesen was thinking when he made this. It’s such a physically imposing task, even to imagine doing! I’m thinking about process and how each push and pull of the clay, each decision, big and small, has to carry feeling, intention. You can almost feel the man’s muscles straining and the bear’s resistance. It must have been so physical to make it. What about the surface, too? Bonnesen coaxes so much information from such a limited tonal range. I think about what it means to work with materials that have heft and weight, where you have to wrestle with them to bring something new into the world. Each artist is in a conversation with one another, and you have to try to listen for that voice when you are looking. The artist is always trying to say something through time. It feels like they are reaching out to you.