Buttocks 19th-20th century

Curator: Gaston Lachaise's bronze sculpture, quite simply titled "Buttocks," currently residing at the Harvard Art Museums, strikes me with its sheer, unapologetic celebration of the body. Editor: It's surprisingly compact, isn’t it? The way the bronze is worked, it seems to almost melt into this dense, concentrated form—a deliberate move, I suspect, to emphasize volume and mass. Curator: Absolutely, and perhaps to distill the essence of form itself. Lachaise, born in 1882, was fascinated by the human figure, particularly the female form, which he saw as a source of endless inspiration and, dare I say, joy. Editor: It’s interesting how the work challenges conventional notions of beauty. The focus here is not on idealization, but on the physical reality and, dare I say, weight, of the body. Bronze lends itself particularly well to the task of conveying this. Curator: And it's a bit cheeky, isn’t it? I mean, it’s literally a pair of buttocks. It's simple, direct, sensual, and so incredibly confident. Editor: Indeed. Its directness forces us to confront our own cultural biases. Perhaps by stripping away the pretenses, we are left with the labor, the body, and its inherent beauty. Curator: I like that—leaving us with the body and its inherent beauty. Editor: Precisely.