Sleeping Muse by Constantin Brancusi

In 1903, Brâncuși traveled to Munich, and from there to Paris. In Paris, he was welcomed by the community of artists and intellectuals brimming with new ideas.
He worked for two years in the workshop of Antonin Mercié of the École des Beaux-Arts, and was invited to enter the workshop of Auguste Rodin.
Even though he admired the eminent Rodin he left the Rodin studio after only two months, saying, "Nothing can grow under big trees".
After leaving Rodin's workshop, Brâncuși began developing the revolutionary style for which he is known.
His first commissioned work, "The Prayer", was part of a gravestone memorial.
It depicts a young woman crossing herself as she kneels, and marks the first step toward abstracted, non-literal representation, and shows his drive to depict "not the outer form but the idea, the essence of things".
He also began doing more carving, rather than the method popular with his contemporaries, that of modeling in clay or plaster which would be cast in metal, and by 1908 he worked almost exclusively by carving.
In the following few years he made many versions of "Sleeping Muse" and "The Kiss", further simplifying forms to geometrical and sparse objects.