«Female Head.» 1902-1903. Anna Golubkina. Marble, limestone. Dimensions: 44×36×20 cm. Tactile model. Plastic.
The sculpture consists of a stone block featuring a high-relief female head protruding from its surface. The rough, chisel-worked texture of the limestone contrasts with the smooth surface of the white marble face. The features include a high, clear forehead and delicate eyebrows. The gaze is calm beneath heavy eyelids, with a straight, sharp nose and firmly closed, slightly full lips.
Anna Golubkina’s high-relief «Female Head» was created a decade before her sculpture «The Sleepers,» which partly echoes its general structural principle: in both works, the artist employs the technique of meticulously sculpting the face and head, which emerge from the «raw,» unworked stone as if from some natural or existential element. However, unlike the more complex and dynamic «three-part» sculpture, «Female Head» presents a static, strictly frontal compositional approach. A formal contrast is nevertheless present here as well. The carefully and smoothly detailed marble head of the model is set against a coarser, unpolished background of limestone, where the marks of the sculptor’s chisel are intentionally left visible. To reinterpret the metaphor of contrasting the human form with wild, untamed nature, one could say that the combination of different materials within a single composition emphasizes the spiritual quality of the female face: it seems to glow as it emerges from the surrounding «darkness.» In addition to the difference in stone textures, the variation in color contributes to this visual effect.
by Irina Savenko