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12 Woman with Mandolin.* *Note: The constant interplay of Lipchitz' subjects is evident also in the relationship between the Sacrifices and the various versions of Prometheus and the Vulture. The gesture of the priest in the First Idea for Sacrifice holding the cock with both hands high above his head may also consciously or unconsciously have suggested the gesture of the Return of the Ehild [[Child]], 1941-43. 1926 Lipchitz spent the summer of 1926 at Ploumanach, a summer resort on the shore of Brittany. There he was intrigued by certain natural formations of rocks in the water off the shore. A tremendous stone was suspended on a series of other stones which had been largely washed away by the waves. The large stone was thus held in a delicate equilibrium. When a wind was blowing, the huge block moved and swayed. The feeling of this great, suspended rock was captured in a sketch entitled Ploumanach (23) which the same year was translated into a finished sculpture. The rock form, an ovoid rectangular mass with rounded corners has on the face of it a reclining figure suggested by the bathers on the beach. It is suspended over an arch. Ploumanach is a massive form but is essentially frontalized with two major views -- front and back. This quality of frontality, obviously reminiscent of the powerful confrontations of primitive or archaic art, intrigued Lipchitz at this moment, and he experimented with it in a number of different shapesures. In another small study for Ploumanach (24)
