Fritz Wotruba

“In recounting Fritz Wotruba's approving reaction to the figures of Auto-da-Fé, Canetti furthermore invites a comparison between his own literary figures and the hard, uncompromising figures fashioned by this modernist sculptor: ['Das scharf Umrissene der Figuren lag ihm']. Canetti felt an intense artistic ‘brotherhood’ (his term) with Wotruba..”

“Solidity, rigidity, what did not yield to the pressure of the hand attracted me.”

“Only a distinctive individual can produce great art. Great art is synonymous with anonymous art.”

“Measures, weights, proportions move and change in expression and meaning.”

“A good piece of art must combine barbarism and culture: two unique elements...”

“There are laws which the stone imposes upon us.”

“The material is destined, in the end, to remain a mere auxiliary, just good enough to enable stammering to become speech.”

“Further working along the lines of experiments of 1954 [toward rounded forms and columnar figures], I executed the 'Figure with upraised arms' as the crucifix for a Parish church in Salzburg.”

“Our existence has a hectic quality. It is as though mobilization [circa 1937, the pre-war years in his country Austria] were imminent. Each one of us is suffering; we are all constantly worried as to how we are going through the next day. In spite of all this, we [Wotruba and his wife] have an unquenchable lust for life.”

“The power and force of stone reside in its mass, its weight, and its density.”

“Culture can flourish only under the protection of a society with aristocratic characteristics.”

“Every magnitude, every dimension, requires a new configuration.”

“The hardness and immobility of material gave me more satisfaction tan true-to-life representations.”

“The search continues for the absolute model-form which shall do justice to every dimension without loss of inner force.”

“What nevertheless subsists is the desire of an absolute ideal form, a form which can adapt itself to any setting and to any scale.”

“At the present time the artists stands alone.. ..no ideology can be of help to him.”

“I am concerned with the figure.. .Equilibrium, unity.”

“Stone is the only true material for the sculptor. All others, tin, iron bars, tin cans and coiled springs are merely poor substitutes”

“I dream of a sculpture in which landscape, architecture and city are one. It might be a city like Marseille, a city steaming with heat which suddenly transmogrifies. I becomes an immense piece of sculpture, a gigantic figure, made up of white blocks and segmented by flat, horizontal terraces, arranged in a bare and motionless landscape. (circa 1969)”

“My desire to work is not stimulated by the classical proportions of Greek architecture, but by functional silos and hangars.. .The confusion of places, cluttered with art and culture chokes my inspiration. What stimulates and interests me is the natural noise of a busy city, and the practical lay-out of a harbor or factory which has come into being without consideration of any aesthetic principles.”