Forest

From the museum

This relief sculpture, or sculpture with three dimensional elements projecting from a flat base, may have been inspired by branches, roots, and foliage Jean Arp observed on walks along the shores of Lake Zurich in Zurich, Switzerland, a neutral and safe city where Arp and other modern artists lived during World War I. The yellow shape at the top may allude to the sun or moon. This and another painted wood sculptural relief by Arp, also titled Forest, at the National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC, are considered the first modernist landscape sculptures, radical in their simplicity and inventiveness at the time. Making this relief sculpture out of wood and titling it "Forest" may have been a pun created by the artist.

The museum’s own description, in English. Licence: CC0