ABSTRACT
In 1846 the Pre-Raphaelite sculptor Thomas Woolner made a figure of Puck. Puck appears as a muscular youth with pointed ears, his foot raised to prod a ruminative toad in danger from an approaching snake. The statue marks a point of instability, dislocation and bodily distortion. Puck is an agent of indisciplined activity, his toe poised to initiate the toad's instant leap, before the snake's sudden lunge. In this respect he is a personification of the violence and vitality of unconstrained nature, of its excess and impropriety. As a supernatural agent of physicality and desire Puck modernizes that epitome of the sculptural grotesque, the gargoyle. Woolner has constructed a composition in which Ruskin's account of the grotesque is reconciled with a Classical aesthetic. Woolner's position is consistent with that of Michelangelo's Victorian biographer, Hartford. According to Hartford, Michelangelo was enthralled by the fanciful theories of Platonism, and wrapped up in its abstraction.
