How did Henry Moore’s 1925 trip to France and Italy affect his artistic development?

Henry Moore’s 1925 trip to France and Italy, supported by a traveling scholarship, was a pivotal moment in his artistic development. While visiting the Trocadero Museum in Paris, he encountered a plaster cast of a Mayan Chac Mool, a reclining male figure.1

Moore was profoundly influenced by this sculpture, finding in it a sense of power, three-dimensional depth, and originality that he felt was absent in conventional European art. Seeking to imbue his own work with these qualities, he adapted the Mayan figure into a female form, which allowed him to express a more human, earthy, and rhythmic image. This transformation led to his first depictions of reclining women in 1926, a motif that would remain central to his work throughout his career.1