"But a sculpture which sets out to achieve the same ends demands an almost unbelievable effort of concentration. Practically none of the episodes or moments of such a legend, [of Prometheus ] really lends itself to sculpture, and the sculptors of the nineteenth century were often quite careless or foolish in the choice of the moment which they set out to represent. Their works could thus become cluttered with all sorts of narrative details which detract from the monumental quality of the whole.. .That's why, in my 'Prometheus', I represent the fire as an integral part of the presence or appearance of the hero; he stands there before us in all his awe-inspiring grandeur, a human figure that seemed in the eyes of the men who first saw him to be actually consumed by the fire that he was bearing. [c. 1960]"
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Ossip Zadkine
Ossip Zadkine (July 4, 1890 – November 25, 1967) was a Russian-born sculptor-artist who lived mainly in France where he was at first working in a Cubist idiom from 1914 to 1925. Later Zadkine developed his characteristic style, strongly influenced by African and Greek art.
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