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Maiastra
1912
(?)
Polished brass
73.1 cm high, including base
76.2553 PG 50
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According to Costantin
Brancusi own testimony, his preoccupation
with the image of the bird as a plastic form began as
early as 1910. With the theme of the Maiastra in the
early teens he initiated a series of about thirty sculptures
of birds.
Although the word "maïastra" means master
or chief in Brancusi’s native Romanian, the title
refers to a magically beneficent, dazzlingly plumed
bird in Romanian folklore. Brancusi’s mystical
inclinations and his deeply rooted interest in peasant
superstition make the motif an apt one. The golden plumage
of the Maiastra is expressed in the reflective surface
of the bronze; the bird’s restorative song seems
to issue from within the monumental puffed chest, through
the arched neck, out of the open beak. The elevation
of the bird on a saw-tooth base lends it the illusion
of perching. The subtle tapering of form, the relationship
of curved to hard-edge surfaces, and the changes of
axis tune the sculpture so finely that the slightest
alteration from version to version reflects a crucial
decision in Brancusi’s development of the theme.
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