La Femmoiselle 1945

Jacques Hérold made "La Femmoiselle", a bronze sculpture, sometime in the 20th century. Isn't it striking how he's caged the face? The grid-like pattern flattens the features, like a Cubist painting rendered in three dimensions. Up close, you can see the rough texture of the bronze, evidence of the artist's hand. Look at the way the light catches on the sharp edges of the grid, creating a play of shadows that shift as you move around the sculpture. Notice the chest, too, with those wing-like extrusions. It is so suggestive, and yet so impenetrable. It's these contrasting elements of the sculpture that give it such an arresting sense of presence. Hérold was part of the Surrealist movement, and you can see echoes of artists like Picasso and Giacometti here. Like them, he's playing with perception and form, inviting us to question what we see and how we see it. Art is an ongoing conversation, a dance between past and present, reality and imagination.