Sculpture

Day

1 of 7

Type: Sculpture(Opens in new tab)
Date: 1938
Accession number: 97.8.2
Maker: Paul Manship(Opens in new tab) (American, 1885–1966)
Dimensions: 13 1/2 × 26 1/4 × 8 1/2 in. (34.3 × 66.7 × 21.6 cm.)
Medium: bronze
Description: Paul Howard Manship was one of America's most productive and popular sculptors in the period between the First and Second World Wars (see his earlier work Salome across the gallery to the right). In the early 1920s, Manship worked in France and, to a lesser extent, in England. During this period, his style underwent a gradual transformation from an emphasis on fluid lines and decorative detail (as evidenced in Salome), to a more sculptural solidity and a tendency towards greater realism, reflecting a new sense of economy and streamlining. In 1927, Manship returned to his new studio and residence on East 72nd Street in New York. For the next twelve years he was occupied with a succession of monumental works that included the Cycle of Life Armillary Sphere for Phillips Academy, in Andover, Massachusetts; the Bronx' Zoo Gates, in New York; the Prometheus Fountain for New York's Rockefeller Plaza; the four Moods of Time groups and the Time and the Fates Sundial for the 1939 New York World's Fair; and the Celestial Sphere for the League of Nations, in Geneva. By the 1930s, Manship had become the country's most visible sculptor with numerous imitators; some critics hold him responsible for the "petrified Classicism" that dominated American sculpture of the 1920s and 1930s. In 1938, Manship began to work on the Time and the Fates Sundial and the Moods of Time groups for the New York World's Fair. Monumental in size, the Moods of Time groups were executed in reinforced plaster and centrally located in a rectangular pool on the Mall at the World's Fair, near the Time and the Fates Sundial. The fountain figures rose from the water and carried the spray's movement horizontally through their bodies, appearing to race with the hours of the day. This element of speed was intended as a link to the fair's "World of Tomorrow" theme. Manship represented the four periods of the day in allegorical form, the Moods of Time reflecting "the light of the sun and the passing of time." In Morning, he used symbols such as the cock crowing and the trumpet blowing for the awakening hour. The male figure of Morning, throwing aside the veil, rises sleepily amid the active messengers of dawn. Day is symbolized by the Sun (Helios) and supported by the figures of two horses in flight, symbols of Apollo's steeds. An expression of the sun, of movement, and of energy, the male figure of Day, drapery and hair flying, speeds forward and reaches out to hold the sun. Evening declines into inactivity, while Night (not shown here) floats as if levitated above the clouds and crescent moon. Evening is symbolized by inertia -- that time of stillness before the movement of night begins. The female figure of Evening is drifting to sleep, the shadows of the wings of the owls fall across the figure, whose descending motion expresses night's calm. Although Manship had hoped that the sculptures would be exhibited in public sculpture gardens following the fair's closing, they were destroyed. Instead, he later cast small, life-size, and statuette-size bronzes of all works from the models.
Credit: The Huntington Library, Art Museum, and Botanical Gardens. Gift of an anonymous donor
Object copyright: copyright © Estate of Paul Manship
Department: American Art
Find out more: View in the Art Museum catalog(Opens in new tab)

Label text

Day is the second sculpture in a series he created as part of a fountain for the 1939 New York World's Fair. The idealized treatment of the human form relates to Manship's interest in classical sculpture. Day is represented by the sun and the two horses pulling the chariot of the Greek sun god Apollo through the sky.

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