Impossible III

Mia Rhodes

Maria Martins, The Impossible, III, 1946. Photo: MoMA

A week ago, I was asked an impossible question. Upon catching a train back to London, I befriended a few strangers. Among them was the vice principal of a secondary school. He asked me the question that art historians get asked rather frequently.

“What’s your favourite piece of art?”

“Impossible”.

‘Impossible’ just so happens to be my favourite piece. To be quite honest, the full title of the work is “Impossible III”, but using the full title would endanger my wordplay.

I saw the piece some three years ago at the MoMA. The reason for my favouritism lies not in its size nor its medium. It does not denote joy, delight or optimism. What this piece does speak to is something very painfully human.

This surreal biomorphic bronze sculpture was made during the 1940s by Brazilian artist Maria Martins. Two visually opposing figures understood to bear the qualities of ‘male’ and ‘female’ reach towards each other, protruding spikes extending from their skulls.

The spikes do not appear to fully touch nor embrace one another; they do not intertwine, entangle or grow together. They are frozen in the act of simply jabbing at each other’s faces. This refusal to meet recalls the work of Henry Moore. More specifically, his piece ‘Three Points’, which can be found in the Tate Modern. This piece is a sculpture wherein three sharp points propel towards each other but never meet, leaving mere millimetres between their potential intersection. This notion of never quite touching, this slight space between expected contact, suggests that true connection can never be found. The message of this piece, according to Martins, is just that - it is quite impossible to fully understand each other.

As mentioned, an obvious gender split is detailed here through the masculinised and feminised forms of the figures; the ‘masculine’ form is depicted as brawny and thick, almost brutish. The more feminine figure towers over the masculine, its body rendered in a slender, arched, more fluid form, breasts visible just beneath the spikes. This gender split provides the implication that this lack of true understanding occurs most often in opposite sex relationships. However, I consider the overarching message to be universally applicable. Though Martins likely constructed the sculpture to reflect the binary split and difficulty in understanding the opposite sex, our exposure to and recognition of a multiplicity of relationships and human connections transforms the ‘male’ and ‘female’ into simply ‘difference’. Arguably, the message of the piece can be applied to any human relationship, romantic or otherwise.

Both forms make a desperate attempt to connect with each other, fighting to feel the other in their entirety, to no avail. Though the skulls of the figures are biomorphic, more resembling vegetation, they are also strangely animalistic, perhaps even carnivorous - a hybrid. Their spikes recalling teeth, fangs even. They are deadly. Easily able to rip the other apart, and yet essential to complete their mouths. In fact, it is the ‘mouth’ that consumes the whole head. It is designed to communicate, and yet fails to do so. Their teeth near clashing in a desperate attempt to accommodate the other and their opposing emotions, desires, thoughts and feelings. The more feminine form looms above the masculine, her ‘teeth’ extending into the other’s throat, as if closing in deeper to the other will provide some element of enlightenment.

An interesting detail about this piece is that their more humanised and literal ‘bodies’ do in fact touch, reminding the viewer that human connection is possible in our physical forms. It is desired, it is necessary to exist. It is our minds that resist this overlap, our minds that cannot emulsify. No matter how much we believe we understand one another, Martins reminds us that it is truly impossible in its totality.

It is perhaps easy to understand this piece as resembling a tragedy, that complete understanding of another can never be achieved. It is these pieces which are the most compelling. It does not depict ‘pure’ love, a simple, honest connection, but reminds viewers of the imperfect human condition through the visual depiction of inhuman forms. Though it may never be possible to understand each other fully, this can be understood as liberation.

We are complete without counterparts, toothy or otherwise. A need for transparency does not necessarily fulfil us, nor our relationships. We may perhaps consider submitting to a partiality of knowing. Remaining as one complete body that only has the capacity to fully understand itself, whilst simply coexisting with others, is perhaps enough.