Ascending Form (Gloria)
Several critics have interpreted the shape of Ascending Form (Gloria) (1958) by Barbara Hepworth as a pair of hands in prayer. The sculpture was made during a period of renewed spirituality for the artist, following the death of her son Paul in 1953. Its abstract or non-representational nature speaks to her mission to achieve human significance through sculptural form.
Hepworth began to work in bronze from the 1950s. Despite their larger size, Hepworth retained the artist’s hand in these works, as seen in the highly textured surface achieved through direct carving. This technique applied to bronze was revolutionary at a time when sculptors were taught only to model in clay. Her experience in Italy informed this technique. Hepworth explained, ‘I only learned my love for bronze when I found that it was gentle and I could file it and carve it and chisel it’; [in Italy] ‘there I felt the continuity of aesthetic sensibility and was humbled by the richness of her heritage’.
Bronze works by Hepworth often appear in various editions. There are eight copies of Ascending Form (Gloria), with one sitting in the former studio and now museum to Hepworth in St Ives, and another standing at the entrance to Longstone Cemetery in Carbis Bay, Cornwall, where the artist is buried.