问答题
{{U}}That Louise Nevelson is believed by many critics to be the
greatest twentieth- century sculptor is all the more remarkable because the
greatest resistance to women artists has been, until recently, in the field of
sculpture.{{/U}} Since Neolithic times, sculpture has been considered the
prerogative of men, partly, perhaps, for purely physical reasons: it was
erroneously assumed that women were not suited for the hard manual labor
required in sculpting stone, carving wood, or working in metal. (47) {{U}}It
has been only during the twentieth century that women sculptors have been
recognized as major artists, and it has been in the United States, especially
since the decades of the fifties and sixties, that women sculptors have shown
the greatest originality and creative power.{{/U}} Their rise to prominence
parallels the development of sculpture itself in the United States : (48)
{{U}}while there had been a few talented sculptors in the United States before the
1940's, it was only after 1945--when New York was rapidly becoming the art
capital of the world--that major sculpture was produced in the United
States.{{/U}} Some of the best was the work of women. By far the
most outstanding of these women is Louise Nevelson, who in the eyes of many
critics is the most original female artist alive today. One famous and
influential critic, Hilton Kramer, said of her work, "For myself, I think Ms.
Nevelson succeeds where the painters often fail. " Her works have been compared
to the Cubist constructions of Picasso, the Surrealistic objects of Miro, and
the Merzbau of Schwitters. (49) {{U}}Nevelson would be the first to admit that she
has been influenced by all of these, as well as by African sculpture, and by
Native American and pre-Columbian art, but she has absorbed all these influences
and still created a distinctive art that expresses the urban landscape and the
aesthetic sensibility of the twentieth century.{{/U}} Nevelson says, "I have
always wanted to show the world that art is everywhere, except that it has to
pass through a creative mind. " (50) {{U}}Using mostly discarded
wooden objects like broken pieces of furniture and abandoned architectural
ornaments, all of which she has hoarded for years, she assembles architectural
constructions of great beauty and power.{{/U}} Creating very freely with no
sketches, she glues and nails objects together, paints them black, or more
rarely white or gold, and places them in boxes. These assemblages, walls,
even entire environments create a mysterious, almost awe-inspiring atmosphere.
Although she has denied any symbolic or religious intent in her works, their
three-dimensional grandeur and even their titles, such as Sky Cathedral and
Night Cathedral, suggest such connotations. In some ways, her most ambitious
works are closer to architecture than to traditional sculpture, but then neither
Louise Nevelson nor her art fits into any neat category.