Kenneth Armitage
Mouton Variation, 1964
Brass
Gift of artist and Wichita State University Purchase with Student Government Assocation funds
Mouton Variation may at first appear to be a very simple sculpture. However, in many ways, it is layered with the history of British artist Kenneth Armitage’s life experiences. Armitage designed the sculpture as part of a project for the façade of the Chateau Mouton Rothschild, near Bordeaux, and from which the sculpture takes its name.
Armitage’s inspiration for that project dates back to his days as a young art student, and a bracket fungus he noticed growing at his school. He stated that, “I saw many years ago a curious fungus in the form of flat horizontal shelves growing out in clusters from the tree trunk, which for some reason were exciting and which I had always wanted to incorporate in my work if the right opportunity came along. The idea seemed appropriate here….”
The projecting flanges, which cast shadows across the surface of Mouton Variation, also relate to an earlier sculpture entitled Girl Without a Face, an idea sparked by a fashion photo in which the model’s face is completely hidden by shadows cast by her long hat. In fact, many of Armitage’s abstract sculptures retain figurative elements, as does Mouton Variation. Its vertical, rounded form may remind you of a simplified person.
Not all of the references in the sculpture are so benign, however. The tower-like shape may derive from the artist’s experiences as a gunner in the Royal Artillery during the second World War. Moreover, the elongated shapes of the flanges, as well as the central vertical form, look a bit like airplane wings and bodies. Armitage also worked in aircraft identification during the war, where sensitivity to the nuances of these machines would have been crucial, as the following anecdote from the British wartime guide "Aircraft Identification: Friend or Foe?" illustrates. The author writes, “…there was at least one famous occasion on which our own fighters were mistaken for enemy reconnaissance machines, and the anti-aircraft gunners allowed themselves a little target practice to which they were not entitled…”