Torse-fruit lunaire

The title of Hans Arp’s work is indicative of its Surrealist character. Seemingly at random, it combines the elements moon, torso, and fruit, but what relationship does this enigmatic combination have to sculpture?

In the 1930s, the French sculptor began to grapple with the idea of metamorphosis, seeing his artistic work as being closely related to the generation of form in nature. His sculptures frequently have a rounded, smooth, almost plant-like character which one can describe as biomorphous, and they often bear traces of a prototype from which Arp abstracts—which in the »Moon-like Torso Fruit« is a human torso.

In the title, it is referred to as both torso and fruit, with the human and plant life combining to form a single entity. Arp, however, is not concerned with the representation of nature but the tracing of its inner laws: “Art should lose itself in nature.”