Artist Inspiration - Hans Bellmer's Dolls

 Hans Bellmer is a German sculptor, photographer, etcher, lithographer and writer born in Katowice, in Silesia in 1902. His most popular work is a series of dolls, 'Die Puppe', constructed in 1933 and published a year later, under the rule of the Nazis. Bellmer gave up all activity useful to the State after the Nazi rise in power, and it is said that his highly sexualised dolls of adolescent girls are a critique of the Nazi emphasis on adhering to a certain kind of physical beauty. However, it is also hypothesised that Bellmer's disturbing dolls were catalysed by a troubled relationship with his father, who persuaded him to study engineering at the Berlin Polytechnic earlier in his career. Bellmer, however, became friendly with the painters Grosz and Dix, and though some of his work still resonates of engineering and mechanics, he otherwise abandoned the practice. 

Bellmer's work is simultaneously beautiful and gaunt, and that is why it inspires me – it makes the observer feel intensely uncomfortable, as if they are viewing the private erotic fantasies of the artist instead of work produced with an audience in mind. There's an intimacy to the sculptures and the drawings, and the distortions of the body and all its multiple points of articulation heavily inspires me. Bellmer takes the female form and manipulates it to a point where it is difficult to recognise as a body, as supposed to a machine or a kind of organic growth. It makes you consider your own body, and his sculptures of the female form have inspired me to focus my sculpture project around the body, also. I want to use black wire or a plaster cast of a female chest as a shell in which to house the object I am given – I want to experiment with concepts of fragility, humanity and protection. I'm drawn to creating either a black wire ribcage to suspend the object within, or a hollow cast of a female chest, and I may also combine these two materials to juxtapose my ideas. The glass object I am given will most likely be presented in such a way that it represents the heart, or even the soul, belonging to the body sculpted around it – glass is such a fragile material, and I feel that using a glass instrument as a metaphor for the human heart relates to how we learn to put up walls in our interactions with others, hiding our emotions and constantly poised to defend ourselves because we are so delicate. 

Hans Bellmer, 'Rose Ou Verte La Nuit'

Some of the names of these pieces are in German, whilst others are in French - this is most likely due to my having sourced the images from French sites, but I did not translate the titles back to German in the event that this may not be the case. The drawing above shows a woman opening her own chest, and this is the kind of symbolic imagery I want to evoke in my sculpture - she looks like she is made up of bricks, or large cell structures, that she is peeling away in order to look at her own insides. I love Bellmer's illustrations because of their delicacy and the often insubstantial lines, as this contrasts with the gross distortions of bodily proportion in his sculpture and the strong lighting in his photography. I find it interesting how using different materials has an immediate effect on Bellmer's style.

Hans Bellmer, 'Souterrain'

 The above piece is an etching by Bellmer that features his signature bodily distortions, and also some surrealist imagery. The sinuous shapes he draws all echo the female form, and I love the use of monochrome in this etching, as well as the variation in tone.

Hans Bellmer, 'La Poupee'

 This is a photograph of one of Bellmer's dolls. I chose this image in particular to draw inspiration from because the doll is dismembered in this photograph, and all the limbs are juxtaposed by being placed next to one another in a way that would never be seen on a normal human body - her hair is touching her hips, thighs, and so on, and there is even what looks to be an eyeball at the very bottom of the image. It's the feeling of disorganization that is special, as you can almost believe that Bellmer did not pose this shot, but that it happened spontaneously whilst putting one of his dolls together. I love how Bellmer documents his art, and his artistic process, in his photography.

Hans Bellmer, a print of a photograph from his 'Die Puppe' series

 Finally, I chose this image to use as a touchstone for my sculpture. The use of tonal contrast is beautiful, and the patterns in the backdrop cohere with the mottled light and dark on the stomach of the doll. What really strikes me about this, however, is the placement of the rose next to the bald head of the doll - a rose is such a symbol of femininity, of beauty, whereas the doll lacking any hair or eyelashes completely goes against the stereotypical conventions of femininity. It almost looks as if Bellmer was trying to create a beautiful image but the aesthetics of the doll preventing him from achieving it. The space between beauty and ugliness that Bellmer's sculpture occupies is something I want to evoke in my own work.