Dragonfly - Visual Analysis

Three meters long, dark, and skeletal, the bestial figure looms above the open space of the austere room.  It appears to be suspended in perpetual flight, halted in the pregnant moment of a turn with its body tensed and bowed like a spring waiting to snap.  Wings expand from a long slender body to reveal the likeness of a grand dragonfly trapped under the cavernous ceiling of the Tate Britain. 

Hovering high above its viewer, it hangs just out of reach but close enough that we feel its presence as a part of our own, in our own space.  It seems impossibly too large.  The elongated body stretches over the objects in the room and the audience alike, but with the shape of an insect, the over life-sized scale is imposing and disconcerting.  We feel smaller than normal and exposed as it lingers over our heads.

With quiet magnetism, it holds a captivating authority.  It stands out as its monochrome black body contrasts with the white of the walls around it.  The solidarity of the blackness becomes analogous with the metallic steel frame that builds the figure, a link that makes it seem mechanistic and robotic.  Though it seems to have industrial qualities in its material and construct, it exudes a lightness and buoyancy that contradicts the heaviness that steel typically evokes.   

It is composed of many individual slivers of steel shards that intersect to create the framework of a flying creature.  Each piece has rough-hewn edges like the rim of a crude knife that is cutting the air.  Some are long and slender while others are wider but punctured with holes.   The perforated pieces occupy the slabs of what appear to be the end of the tail and left side wings.  On the opposite side, arched angular cut outs are fixed into one another and fastened together to create the illusion of a set of wings protruding from the right side of the figure.  If you situate yourself directly underneath the piece, the wings fan out from the core of the body as though caught in the midst of work, but it is impossible to discern when and where they will next move. 

Thinner, more delicate steel wires build the frame of the body.  Where what we would assume to be the thorax is located, the framework expands with a three-dimensional geometric construct, providing a sense of bodily form while remaining transparent and purely structural.  The negative space between each metal strip becomes the interior filling for the body.  Along the middle casing there is a set of small cylindrical bars bent into obtuse angles repeated to produce the suggestion of a ribcage.  One long, thin line of metal runs along the side of the frame giving the outline of the body that is alluded to by the rest of the material.  This single strip connects the central segment of the figure to the stretched out point of the tail end of the insect.  Its extended curvature helps to emphasize the elasticity and tension of the body as it shifts through time and space.  The entire bodily construction is asymmetrical and is open to the side opposite the long strip, further emphasizing its illusion of movement.

The sculpture is held in place by a single bar projecting from the core of the body that is attached to a string that is fairly unnoticeable upon first glance.  This gives the appearance of the figure partaking in flight of its own accord, while also attesting to the artist’s incredible ability to create balance in a large work of metal sculpture.  The individual slabs of metal were fixed together beautifully to allow the piece to hang evenly horizontal by its central axis.  Being suspended by a single string, the piece acts a mobile that can rotate on its midpoint if provoked by some outside source. 

It is constantly on the cusp of movement, as though it will whip its tail and fly away if you let out a breath.  At the moment you do not know where it will go next:  if it will ascend to the ceiling, move down to our level, or continue on its present course forward.  Despite its bodily tension, there is stillness around the piece that you are more sensitive to as you interact with it.  If you stop to watch, you become hyperaware of miniscule adjustments.  You find yourself anticipating its next move but unsure of what will happen when it does.

Lynn Chadwick (1914-2003),  Dragonfly,  1951,  Steel,  2770 x 1060 x 260 mm,  Presented by the Contemporary Art Society 1951,  Tate Britain,  Room 1944-1959,  Theme:  A walk through the twentieth century

Incidentially, if I were to throw this sculpture into a vat of jello, the squirshy goop would soften the impact of the steel frame as it sliced through to clang at the bottom.