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Constantin Brancusi Head of Sleeping Child, 1908 NNAM- Centre G, Pompidou, Paris &copy ADAGR, Paris and DACS, London 2004

Brancusi looked for universal qualities in the particular and understood that a part of the body could stand for the whole. The most expressive feature of the human form is the head. Brancusi’s sympathetic portrayal of Head of a Sleeping Child (c.1908) is still delicately realistic, but already in a work like Prometheus (1911) individuality is pared down to a minimum. The sense of drama implied by the title – Prometheus was punished by the gods for bringing fire to men – also appears to be, literally, smoothed away.

In Sleeping Muse (1909-10) a similar process of reduction is visible. The elegant pinching of the nose runs into the steeply arched brows, describing a form that provides a clear structure for the face. A further stage in this refinement is evident in The Newborn II (1919-21), in which an angled plane suggests the screaming mouth that itself symbolises the struggle of entering the world.

Constantin Brancusi Sleeping Muse 1909-10 Hirschhorn Museum and Sculpture &copy ADAGR, Paris and DACS, London 2004