Nature was one of the main sources of inspiration for Hans Arp and he admired the laws of nature and its possibilities of metamorphosis, but he strictly rejected to copy or to imitate nature. Guided by chance and intuition, the artist created his own organic, irregular geometry.
He wanted to show the development and nourishing of natural life and make it perceptible, but not in a mimetic way. Arp established a connection between the biomorphic forms of his sculptures and elements of the natural world in such a way as to unveil the mysterious and poetic elements hidden in the environment around us.
The human body itself steps back in his oeuvre but its forms remain recognizable sometimes, like in the “Star Amphora” which evokes the shapes of a female body. Inspired by a Greek ancient amphora the sculpture seems to grow like a plant, simple and elegant, showing Arp's artistic idea of the origin of life and all its diverse growing processes.
Arp enjoyed seeing his sculptures in natural settings, including the large bronzes and carvings placed in the garden outside his villa at Meudon, on the outskirts of Paris, where they could merge into the landscape and become one with nature.
