Architectural sculpture
Architectural sculpture is the use of
It has also been defined as "an integral part of a building or sculpture created especially to decorate or embellish an architectural structure."[1]
Architectural sculpture has been employed by builders throughout history, and in virtually every continent on earth save pre-colonial Australia.
Egyptian
Modern understanding of ancient Egyptian architecture is based mainly on the religious monuments that have survived since antiquity, which are carved stone with
Obelisks, elaborately carved from a single block of stone, were usually placed in pairs to flank the entrances to temples and pyramids.
Reliefs are also common in Egyptian building, depicting scenes of everyday life and often accompanied by hieroglyphics.
Assyro-Babylonian
The Fertile Crescent architectural sculptural tradition began when Ashurnasirpal II moved his capitol to the city of Nimrud around 879 BCE. This site was located near a major deposit of gypsum (alabaster). This fairly easy to cut stone could be quarried in large blocks that allowed them to be easily carved for the palaces that were built there. The early style developed out of an already flourishing mural tradition by creating drawings that were then carved in low relief.[2] Another contributing factor in the development of architectural sculpture were the small carved seals that had been made in the area for centuries.
Indian
Greco-Roman
The most significant Greek introduction, well before the Classical period, was
Classical Greek architecture, like the prototypical
Greek examples of architectural sculpture are distinguished not only by their age but their very high quality and skilful technique, with rhythmic and dynamic modelling, figural compositions in friezes that continue seamlessly over vertical joints from one block of stone to the next, and mastery of depth and legibility.
The known Greek and Roman examples have been exhaustively studied, and frequently copied or adapted into subsequent neoclassical styles:
European
Pre-Columbian North and South America
Post-contact North and South America
United States
Not until about 1870 did the U.S. develop the talent, the economic power, and the taste for buildings grand enough to need architectural sculpture. The Philadelphia City Hall, constructed 1871 through 1901, is recognized as the turning point,[3] because of the approximately 250 sculptures planned for the building, the large finial of William Penn, and the practical effect of Alexander Milne Calder training many assistants there.
In the same years,
The advent of steel frames and reinforced concrete encouraged, at first, more diverse building styles into the 1910s and 1920s. The diversity of skyscraper Gothic, exotic "revivals" of Mayan and Egyptian, Stripped Classicism, Art Deco, etc. called for a similar diversity of sculptural approaches. The use of sculpture was still expected, particularly for public buildings such as war memorials and museums. In 1926 the pre-eminent American architectural sculptor, Lee Lawrie, with his longtime friend and collaborator architect Bertram Goodhue, developed perhaps the most sophisticated American examples at the Nebraska State Capitol and the Los Angeles Public Library.
Goodhue's premature death ended that collaboration. The Depression, and the onset of World War II, decimated building activity. The old building trades disbanded. By the postwar years the aesthetic of architectural modernism had taken hold. Except for a few diehards and regional sculptors, the profession was not only dead but discredited. As of the 2010s there are isolated signs of a revival of interest, for instance in the career of Raymond Kaskey and the Persist statue in Sacramento, California.[4]
See also
- List of architectural sculpture in Westminster
- Pedimental sculptures in Canada
- Pedimental sculptures in the United States
References
- ^ "Select Art Sculpture: Glossary". selectartusa.com. Archived from the original on 2017-08-23. Retrieved 2014-01-06.
- ^ Reade, Julian (1983) Assyrian Sculpture Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press pp. 17-21
- ^ Gurney, George (1974) Sculpture of a City—Philadelphia's Treasures in Bronze and Stone, Fairmount Park Association, New York: Walker Publishing Co., Inc.
- ^ "Persist". The Honey Agency. Retrieved 4 April 2020.
External links
- Media related to Architectural sculptures at Wikimedia Commons