Exploring the Guitar Form for the Production of Sculpture
Chapter One
Aim and Objectives of the Study
The main aim of this study was to create sculpture relief compositions derived from an acoustic guitar form. The specific objectives were to:
- Explore the possibilities of producing relief sculptures from the guitarform,
- Explore the possibilities of using curvilinear form of the acoustic guitar to produce reliefsculptures,
- To analyse sculpturally the guitar form to a conceptual
CHAPTER TWO
REVIEW OF LITERATURES AND WORKS
Introduction
This chapter is divided into two segments. The first is an analysis of a guitar and the second is a review of related works.
The emphasis of this research is basically towards the exploration of acoustic guitar forms in producing sculptures. This chapter reviews existing works that shares semblance in appearance with the guitar. It also includes literature on the guitar. About ten works have been reviewed. This is coming from the background of the study idealising the numerous hidden forms in a modern guitar for the production of sculpture which is the area of focus for this research. This review is divided into two sub headings below:
An analysis of a guitar and
Review of related
Analysis of a Guitar
A guitar is a stringed musical instrument with a fretted fingerboard, typically incurved sides, and usually six or twelve strings played by musical artist. The large wooden part of the guitar is referred to as the body while the thin piece that is connected to the body is called the neck, the strings run from the bridge which is on the body of the guitar (near the hole in the body) and connects to the ―tuning pegs or tuning heads‖ which are on the head of the guitar. The metal pieces that lie along the neck at seemingly random internals are the frets and the neck is sometimes referred to as the fret board. The six strings are pressed onto the fretboard by the player‘s left hand, which shortens the path of the string allowed to vibrate when plucked, which changes the pitch of the string.
In the words of Guy (2007), the earliest stringed instruments known to archaeologists are bowl harps and tanburs. Since prehistory, people have made bowl harps using tortoise shells and calabashes as resonators, with a bent stick for a neck and one or more gut or silk strings. The world’s museums contain many of such “harps” from the ancient Sumerian, Babylonian, and Egyptian civilisations. Around 2500 – 2000 BC more advanced harps, such as the opulently carved 11-stringed instrument with gold decoration found in Queen Shub-Ad’s tomb, started to appear.
Many theories have been advanced about the instrument’s ancestry. It has often been claimed that the guitar is a development of the lute, or even of the ancient Greek kithara. Based on the research done by Michael Kasha in the 1960s, this claims seems to be without merit. He showed that the lute (any plucked stringed instrument with a neck and a deep round back) is a result of a separate line of development, sharing common ancestors with the guitar, but having had no influence on its evolution,‖ Guy (2007). However, the guitar’s immediate forefathers were a major influence on the development of the fretted lute from the fretless oud which the Moors brought with them to Spain. Guy (2007) continued that the guitar is considered a European-invented instrument that first appeared during the medieval period. The form of the modern classical guitar is credited to Spanish guitar maker Antonio Torres (circa 1850). Torres increased the size of the guitar body, altered its proportions, and invented the fan-like top bracing pattern. Antonio Torres’ design greatly improved the volume, tone, and projection of the instrument, and has remained essentially unchanged.
At around the same time that torres started making his breakthrough fan-braced guitars in Spain, German immigrants to the USA –among them- had begun making guitar with X- braced tops which was preceded by the steel strings instruments that were invented in 1900.
Steel strings made for louder guitars; however, the increased tension that the steel strings created did not work with Antonio Torre‘ fan braced design. Guitar makers, such as Christian Fredrich Martin invented the X brace for the new steel stringed guitar.
Acoustic guitar (and similar instruments) with hollow bodies have been in use for over a thousand years. There are three main types of modern acoustic guitar: the classical guitar (nylon-string guitar), the steel-string acoustic guitar, and the archtop guitar. The tone of an acoustic guitar is produced by the vibration of the strings, which is amplified by the body of the guitar, which acts as a resonating chamber. The classical guitar is often played as a solo instrument using a comprehensive finger-picking technique. Gertz (2011), contends, ―the modern electric guitar takes the Bauhaus dictum that forms a step further.
Review of related works
This review is directed towards sculptures with inherent structural semblance especially those with discernible forms of an acoustic guitar. The reviewed works below follow sequence of diverse media and rendition of realism and abstraction. Though, each artwork under review is dependent on the artist intuition and the materials of expression at his disposal. The various materials include mild steel sheets, aluminium cast, acrylic, cardboard, string, stone and installation.
CHAPTER THREE
METHODOLOGY
Introduction
This chapter contains information on the methods used in data collection, techniques, processes and materials employed in the production of works. The study employed an exploratory studio based methodology, which was conceived basically through observation of the acoustic guitar and subsequently sketches were made forming a mental image of the intended sculpture evolving from the representational, stylized and distorted.
SOURCES OF DATA / MATERIALS
Major sources of data for this study were collected from studying and observing the guitar, photographs, magazines, encyclopaedia, review of previous works and internet sources.
Data Collection
The process in which data was collected for this study was through primary and secondary sources.
Primary data: This method was by direct study of the guitar form. This gave the researcher a view of the guitar form which was captured in several sketches done with graphite, lead and ink on paper. The photographs of the guitar taken in the course of the study were used as reference materials.
Secondary Data: an analysis of related literature and study of works of sculptors that had worked in the same line of research.
CHAPTER FOUR
ANALYSIS OF WORKS
Introduction
A total number of twenty works were produced for exhibition but fifteen where carefully selected for documentation. The choice of these works was based on their relationship with the logic of the study. The acoustic guitar, a stringed musical instrument, served as a source of inspiration for this research, thus the sculptures produced were categorised into three major groups as listed below.
CHAPTER FIVE
Findings, Summary/Conclusion
Introduction
This chapter contains findings it also draws a comprehensive ending and states its recommendation to researchers in related field of study. However the study was focused on exploring the guitar form for the production of sculpture while the specific objective was to study and explore the possibilities of producing relief sculpture derivatives from the guitar form.
Summary
This study explored form using the acoustic guitar for the production of sculpture in a sequential arrangement which hitherto filled a vacuum that had existed decades. In the course of this research, ten related works were reviewed and at the end of the study, a total of twenty works were produced, catalogued and documented. The sculptures produced are categorised into the representational, stylized and distorted. Some findings were made in the process of this study and are stated as follows;
Findings
The researcher discovered that several forms can emanate from the acoustic guitar shape when explored. This is seen in all the sculptural works executed in the course of this study. It was also observed that cubic nature of the works give it three dimensionality this is because some of the sculptures are rendered in slightly high relief, this is seen in plate xxx, xxxi, xxxii.
The acoustic guitar is known to posses feminine artistic features mostly in curvilinear manner and could even be more aesthetically pleasing when some level of abstraction and distortion are introduced, this is seen in plates xviii, xix, xx, xxi, xxiv, xxv. In the course of the study the researcher observed that other musical instruments can be explored for the production of sculpture with similar conceptual approach.
Finally, the researcher also discovered that creation of positive and negative spaces in sculpture eliminates rigidity, gives room for flexibility, depth and suggest movement this is seen in plate xxiii, xxiv, xxv, xxvi, xxvii and xxx.
Conclusion
The researcher acknowledges that some contemporary and emerging artists in the past used various media to produce works based on the development of forms. These sculptors had at various times extracted and developed forms. However, it is obvious that form explored in these research were inspired by the researcher‘s personal interest and understanding of the geometric and curvilinear shapes derived from the guitar form for the production of sculptures. A photographic representation and documentation of all materials, from related literature and relief sculptures produced in the course of this studio based research were all catalogued in chapter two and four respectively.
In the course of the study plate xxxiv (hidden) was enlarged into a larger version of the works embellished on a building.
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