Henry Moore's Upright Motive No. 9 at Kansas City
This paper examines Henry Moore's bronze sculpture Upright Motive No. 9, permanently installed at the Kansas City Sculpture Park. It traces Moore's artistic influences — from Michelangelo and Brancusi to Picasso and Surrealism, as well as indigenous art, totem poles, and prehistoric stone monuments — and explains how these shaped his distinctive abstract human forms. The paper also discusses competing interpretations of Moore's upright figures, ranging from primordial imagery to World War I symbolism, and describes a recent conservation effort to clean and rewax the sculpture. The setting of the sculpture park itself is addressed as an ideal environment for Moore's work.
- Introduction: Moore at the Kansas City Sculpture Park: Upright Motive No. 9 described in its park setting
- Henry Moore's Artistic Influences: Moore's biography and wide-ranging artistic inspirations
- The Park Setting and Critical Reception: Critics praise the park as ideal for Moore's work
- Interpreting the Upright Forms: Symbolic readings from primitive sources to war imagery
- Nature, Surrealism, and the Human Figure: Moore connects humanity to nature through abstract form
- Conservation of Upright Motive No. 9: Sculpture cleaned, rewaxed, and returned to the park
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What makes this paper effective
- The paper grounds its analysis in a specific, named artwork viewed in its actual physical setting, giving the discussion a concrete focal point throughout.
- It weaves together biographical context, formal analysis, and critical interpretation, showing how Moore's life experiences and influences shaped a single representative sculpture.
- The inclusion of the conservation episode adds a practical, contemporary dimension that reinforces the sculpture's ongoing cultural significance.
Key academic technique demonstrated
The paper demonstrates effective use of direct quotation from primary and secondary sources to support interpretive claims. Rather than simply paraphrasing critics, the writer lets Moore speak in his own words alongside scholarly voices such as Herbert Read and Dorothy Kosinski, creating a layered reading of the sculpture's meaning. This technique models how to integrate quoted evidence smoothly within an art-historical argument.
Structure breakdown
The paper opens with a description of the sculpture and its setting, moves into Moore's biography and influences, transitions to critical and symbolic interpretations of his upright forms, and closes with the practical story of the sculpture's recent cleaning and restoration. This arc — from visual description to intellectual context to contemporary stewardship — gives the short essay a clear beginning, middle, and end.
Introduction: Moore at the Kansas City Sculpture Park
One of artist Henry Moore's greatest pleasures was seeing his sculptures in the open air (Russell 1989), so he would be very pleased to see the bronze figure Upright Motive No. 9 at the Kansas City Sculpture Park. It stands very regally at 12 feet tall, alongside another dozen of his artworks and 30 sculptures in total, set within a 22-acre park designed by architects Dan Kiley and Jaquelin Robertson in 1989.
Upright Motive No. 9, a massive 1,200-pound upright bronze figure, depicts a human body rising from the base of the sculpture in an abstract form. Moore said that this form "was inspired by the verticality of trees and Northwest Coast American Indian totem poles" (Kansas City Sculpture Park 2009). Moore joined several other artists of his time who were considerably interested in the artistic creations of indigenous cultures. His upright figure continues a tradition that stretches back thousands of years, while also referencing the Renaissance, Baroque, and Rococo stone sculpture traditions.
Henry Moore's Artistic Influences
Born in 1898, Moore is considered the most prominent British sculptor of the 20th century (Encarta). He studied at the Leeds School of Art and the Royal College of Art in London. His early work was heavily influenced by the monumental figures of Italian Renaissance artists such as Michelangelo, the shapely forms of French sculptor Constantin Brancusi, and the organic shapes found in nature and in Egyptian, Sumerian, and African sculptures. Later, Pablo Picasso became a major influence, as did other abstract artists.
Moore was an avid collector of art from indigenous cultures, in addition to stones, skulls, and bones, all of which influenced his sculpture. Above all, it was the natural world that affected him most, particularly its connection to the human body. "The human figure," he stated, "is what interests me most deeply, but I have found principles of form and rhythm from the study of natural objects, such as pebbles, rocks, bones, trees, plants" (Encarta). Surrealism, which tended toward abstract and organic forms, was also a major influence. Moore loved to create moving forms of women sitting or reclining; male and female couples, mother and child, and family units were among the recurring themes of his works (Encarta).
The Park Setting and Critical Reception
The setting of the Kansas City Sculpture Park is ideal for Moore's works. In his article about the park, Russell (1989) wrote on the occasion of its opening: "It is never dull for a moment, and we can imagine Henry Moore humming and sniffing and conjecturing every inch of the way. Much that has been planted is still far short of maturity, but we are left in no doubt that in the year 1999 this will be a great place for meditation, tree-watching and the discreet plighting of troths." The architects of the Kansas City Sculpture Park succeeded in making visitors forget that the park sits amidst a large city, surrounded by busy, trafficked roads.
References
Bazin, Germain. 1968. History of World Sculpture. Greenwich, CT: New York Graphic Society.
Nelson Atkins Museum of Art/Kansas City Blog. Retrieved April 3, 2009.
Kosinski, Dorothy. 2001. Henry Moore. New Haven: Yale University Press.
Mitchinson, David. 1998. Celebrating Moore. Berkeley: UCLA Press.
MSN Encarta Online. Henry Moore. Retrieved April 3, 2009.
Russell, John. "Moore Sculptures in a Kansas City Garden." New York Times, "Review Art," June 5, 1989.
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