Weekend Argus (Saturday Edition)
Capturing the essence of Madiba takes some stones
Pay close attention to his hands and face, say sculptors Doyle and Prinsloo
ANDRE Prinsloo, who crafted the Nelson Mandela sculpture at the Union Buildings, laments that he never got to meet the man he cast in stone, who died 11 days before the statue was unveiled in 2013.
But Jean Doyle, sculptor of the Drakenstein Mandela statue, can describe in detail the day she met Mandela. How the wind and rain howled and pelted against the tent; how Graça Machel rose to let her sit next to, and present a model of the monument, to a frail but smiling Madiba; and how he told her that he liked it very much.
This week, the City of Cape Town announced plans to also commission a R3.5 million statue of democratic South Africa’s first president. A public participation period is set to be followed next month with a call for artist proposals.
Cape Town’s stated purpose is linked to job creation via tourism. But for those tasked with representing one of the most revered figures in the world of the last century, the process is about more than just materials and geometry.
It’s months of trying to learn about Mandela until they “know” him, a process that can be life-changing. “For any artist, this would be the opportunity of a lifetime,” Prinsloo said.
The first public sculpture of Mandela erected in South Africa was a six-metre high statue in Sandton, Johannesburg. Internationally acclaimed local artists Jacob Maponyane and Kobus Hattingh were commissioned to build the statue that took five years to fund, and a year to craft. It was unveiled in 2004.
Hattingh suffered a stroke shortly after completing the statue and had to re-learn how to draw and sculpt. He has since completed several Mandela replicas and statues.
Three years later, the state decided to erect a statue at the Boland’s Drakenstein Correctional Centre, where Mandela spent his final prison years. Doyle, a bronze sculptor who built the National Monument to National Freedom in Angola, was approached to sculpt it.
“They wanted a sculpture of how he walked out of prison with the salute,” Doyle said. “Joyful, triumphant and full of depth.”
She set about gathering images and newspapers clippings from 17 years prior, creating an image in her head of not only the face she had to sculpt, but the person behind it.
“I felt I knew him intimately,” Doyle recalled.
She wanted Mandela’s Xhosa heritage to shine through his face, and crafted his suit to look as it did when he came out of prison in 1990 as “immaculately” as ever.
Doyle paid particular attention to his face and his hands, hoping to craft the precise ANC salute Madiba gave as he walk out. Most people assume it’s a power salute, she said, but it’s actually one of unity and strength, the key difference here being that the thumb slides over the fingers rather than under.
Prinsloo paid close attention to sculpting Mandela’s hands, too. Dali Tambo, former ANC leader Oliver Tambo’s son, approached him and co- artist Ruhan Janse van Rensburg to create a sculpture as part of the Long Walk to Freedom project, placing it at the spot of Mandela’s inauguration in 1994.
In every other statue of Mandela, his fist is raised, but here his hands were to be outstretched. President Jacob Zuma explained at the unveiling that this was a symbol of Mandela welcoming the nation.
The sculptors had planned to weave symbols and florals into Madiba’s clothing, but instead focused on his hands and face. They clad their statue in a plain vest and without shoelaces so Mandela’s attire wouldn’t distract from his hands and face. For Prinsloo, Madiba’s hands – the hands of a former boxer – were filled with a particular transformational power.
“Those hands that once could fight and – he was con- sidered to be a terrorist – those hands could forgive his enemy and embrace his enemy,” he said.
Prinsloo began to regard his selection to create the sculpture as a form of that transformation and reconciliation. He was a white artist who grew up on the oppressor’s side of apartheid, Prinsloo said. For Dali Tambo to pick him was a form of redemption in the spirit of Mandela.
“It happened unexpectedly and it was a life- changing experience,” Prinsloo added.
So he worked with particular zeal. He and Janse van Rensburg read Long Walk to Freedom, visited Robben Island and the Mandela Capture Site, read every scrap of information they could find and travelled to every monument.
They rushed to finish their statuary tribute in three months in a hope of meeting the ailing Mandela.
Prinsloo never got the chance, but just building the statue imparted something of the icon’s legendary wisdom.
“When he stepped out of prison, he could have had civil war and instead he chose to embrace his enemy,” Prinsloo said.
“I realised that if a man like that, if he had power to do that, that inspired me as a person to embrace people around me, not only in a racial way but all walks of life”.