CONSTANTIN BRANCUSI Constantin Brancusi is one of the greatest of all sculptors, and a key sculptor of the modern era, with Auguste Rodin and Pablo Picasso. Brancusi"s influence can be seen in a wide range of Western sculptors, including Donald Judd, Carl Andre, Henry Moore, Jean Arp, Barbara Hepworth, Minimalists and land artists. This new book studies the religious and mythical dimensions of Constantin Brancusi"s distinctive scultpural forms, the "eggs", "fishes", "heads" and "columns". His central quest was for the "essence of things", which resulted in purifying a form until only the essence was left. It was Constantin Brancusi"s project to strip away the detritus that had accumulated around sculpture, Henry Moore said, and to offer the pure, simple shape. What Brancusi did was "to concentrate on very simple shapes, to keep his sculpture, as it were, one-cylindered, to refine and polish a single shape to a degree almost too precious." As well...