Zeihartu I

Eduardo Chillida (1924-2002) was born in San Sebastían in the Basque region of Spain. Many of his titles are in the Basque language of Euskera. The meaning of the word ‘Zeihartu’ translates as ‘to turn aside’, ‘to skew’ or ‘to tilt’. [1]

Chillida consciously distorts the perfection of geometric ideals in this work and uses a blocky linear composition to explore the human approximation of the “right angle”:

“It must be remembered that the Greeks, when they discovered the right angle, – it was a lovely discovery – it was the angle that man made with his shadow. That is the discovery of the right angle; they called it gnomon (indicator). This angle has 90 degrees, or really, was this a later rationalization? We don’t know if the angle that they discovered had 90, 89 or 92 degrees. It’s what the man made with his shadow. In fact, it is a living angle, it can have all kinds of variants, it will walk around like a plumb line that doesn’t stop. I pay more attention to these things than to the absolute definition of the 90-degree right angle. In this way, if I move or if I move the rigour or the coldness of the right angle whether towards one slightly obtuse or slightly more acute, the spatial responses are infinitely richer.” [2]

This human angle in Chillida’s work gives his compositions an organic geometry that is alive – possessing a vitality that vibrates naturally. [3]

In his youth, Eduardo Chillida was a professional soccer player for the team Real Sociedad. After suffering a serious knee injury, he began training as an architect at the University of Madrid (1943-46). However, Chillida never finished this degree, and instead, took lessons in drawing at Madrid’s Cìrculo de Bellas Artes and joined a sculpture workshop. [4]

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