NGA Classroom: New Angles on Art: Student Activity: Tantalized by the Tetrahedron

Student Activity: Tantalized by the Tetrahedron

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The tetrahedron, a regular four-sided solid with faces of equilateral triangles, was Smith's favorite because of its strength and stability. It inspired him to build small models that would later be made into huge metal sculptures.

A polyhedron is a three-dimensional solid made up of plane (flat) faces.

Poly = many
Hedron = faces

Tony Smith, Moondog, model 1964, fabricated 1998-1999

These five regular polyhedra are known as the Platonic Solids:


Cube		Dodecahedron		Icosahedron		Octahedron		Tetrahedron



		Moondog is made of 15 extended octahedrons and 10 tetrahedrons, interlocked together. Do you see how he elongated these solids and fit them together in Moondog?

Wandering Rocks

Tony Smith's Wandering Rocks sit, perfectly placed, among big rocks and trees on the National Gallery of Art East Building lawn. At first glance, it looks like the real thing. But the "rocks" are too smooth, too faceted, too much like exotic crystals jutting out from an underground mine to be regular rocks.

What inspired Smith to make geometric sculptures like Wandering Rocks? Click on each "wandering rock" to read what he had to say about his sculpture-making process.

Tony Smith, Wandering Rocks, 1967

Wandering Rocks is a good example of how Smith combined abstract, geometric forms with a human, or anthropomorphic, scale. He was influenced by formal Japanese gardens, with their randomly arranged stones, and by the primitive stone dwellings at Mesa Verde, Colorado, and the Incan ruins of Machu Picchu in Peru.

Japanese Garden

Ruins of Cliff Palace, Mesa Verde National Park, Colorado, ca. 1200

Machu Picchu, Peru

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