What is this?
That is "The Awakening" by Maurice Sterne, dating from 1926.
The awakening from what or to what?
Sterne lived a bohemian life in Paris, where he first saw the art of Cézanne and other French modernists at the Salons d’Automne. He then traveled through Europe, to India and the Far East, and returned to New York in 1915.
He may have made this sculpture in response to the end of World War I, so it could be interpreted as waking up from the horrors of the War. Writers at the time also suggested it was in reference to the awakening of the modern woman.
Tell me more.
Maurice Sterne was an American painter and sculptor active during the first half of the twentieth century. Starting his career as a painter, Sterne began experimenting in three dimensions after a colleague commented on a sculptural quality in his draftsmanship. He translated into sculpture a modern aesthetic more commonly found in painting of the period.
Here, we see an allegorical figure representing women's liberation efforts in the 1920's.
Would this statue be considered idealized?
"The Awakening" is idealized in the sense that it constitutes an allegorical figure. This woman, awakening from a metaphorical slumber, symbolizes the women's liberation movement of the 1920's.