Sculpture

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"Sculpting" redirects here. For sculpting in computer graphics, see Digital sculpting.
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Venus of Hohle Fels, Germany, oldest known sculpture of a human being, 42.000-40.000 BP
Dying Gaul, or The Capitoline Gaul,[1] a Roman marble copy of a Hellenistic work of the late 3rd century BCE, Capitoline Museums, Rome
Khorsabad
, c. 800–721 BCE
Michelangelo's Moses, (c. 1513–1515), San Pietro in Vincoli, Rome, for the tomb of Pope Julius II
Netsuke of tigress with two cubs, mid-19th-century Japan, ivory with shell inlay
The Angel of the North by Antony Gormley
, 1998

Sculpture is the branch of the

stone, metal, ceramics, wood and other materials but, since Modernism, there has been almost complete freedom of materials and process. A wide variety of materials may be worked by removal such as carving, assembled by welding or modelling, or moulded or cast
.

Sculpture in stone survives far better than works of art in perishable materials, and often represents the majority of the surviving works (other than pottery) from ancient cultures, though conversely traditions of sculpture in wood may have vanished almost entirely. However, most ancient sculpture was brightly painted, and this has been lost.[2]

Sculpture has been central in religious devotion in many cultures, and until recent centuries, large sculptures, too expensive for private individuals to create, were usually an expression of religion or politics. Those cultures whose sculptures have survived in quantities include the cultures of the ancient Mediterranean, India and China, as well as many in Central and South America and Africa.

The Western tradition of sculpture began in ancient Greece, and Greece is widely seen as producing great masterpieces in the classical period. During the Middle Ages, Gothic sculpture represented the agonies and passions of the Christian faith. The revival of classical models in the Renaissance produced famous sculptures such as Michelangelo's statue of David. Modernist sculpture moved away from traditional processes and the emphasis on the depiction of the human body, with the making of constructed sculpture, and the presentation of found objects as finished artworks.

Types

Open air Buddhist rock reliefs at the Longmen Grottoes, China

A distinction between sculpture "in the round", free-standing sculpture such as

Sunk-relief is a technique restricted to ancient Egypt. Relief is the usual sculptural medium for large figure groups and narrative subjects, which are difficult to accomplish in the round, and is the typical technique used both for architectural sculpture, which is attached to buildings, and for small-scale sculpture decorating other objects, as in much pottery, metalwork and jewellery. Relief sculpture may also decorate steles
, upright slabs, usually of stone, often also containing inscriptions.

Another basic distinction is between subtractive carving techniques, which remove material from an existing block or lump, for example of stone or wood, and modelling techniques which shape or build up the work from the material. Techniques such as casting, stamping and moulding use an intermediate matrix containing the design to produce the work; many of these allow the production of several copies.

The term "sculpture" is often used mainly to describe large works, which are sometimes called monumental sculpture, meaning either or both of sculpture that is large, or that is attached to a building. But the term properly covers many types of small works in three dimensions using the same techniques, including coins and medals, hardstone carvings, a term for small carvings in stone that can take detailed work.

The very large or "colossal" statue has had an enduring appeal since antiquity; the largest on record at 182 m (597 ft) is the 2018 Indian Statue of Unity. Another grand form of portrait sculpture is the equestrian statue of a rider on horse, which has become rare in recent decades. The smallest forms of life-size portrait sculpture are the "head", showing just that, or the bust, a representation of a person from the chest up. Small forms of sculpture include the figurine, normally a statue that is no more than 18 inches (46 cm) tall, and for reliefs the plaquette, medal or coin.

Modern and contemporary art have added a number of non-traditional forms of sculpture, including

physical motion), land art, and site-specific art. Sculpture is an important form of public art. A collection of sculpture in a garden setting can be called a sculpture garden. There is also a view that buildings are a type of sculpture, with Constantin Brâncuși describing architecture as "inhabited sculpture". [citation needed
]

Purposes and subjects

Moai from Easter Island, where the concentration of resources on large sculpture may have had serious political effects
Medal of John VIII Palaeologus, c. 1435, by Pisanello, the first portrait medal, a medium essentially made for collecting

One of the most common purposes of sculpture is in some form of association with religion.

cong
probably had religious significance.

Small sculptures as personal possessions go back to the earliest prehistoric art, and the use of very large sculpture as

Great Sphinx of some 4,500 years ago. In archaeology and art history the appearance, and sometimes disappearance, of large or monumental sculpture in a culture is regarded as of great significance, though tracing the emergence is often complicated by the presumed existence of sculpture in wood and other perishable materials of which no record remains;[3]

The totem pole is an example of a tradition of monumental sculpture in wood that would leave no traces for archaeology. The ability to summon the resources to create monumental sculpture, by transporting usually very heavy materials and arranging for the payment of what are usually regarded as full-time sculptors, is considered a mark of a relatively advanced culture in terms of social organization. Recent unexpected discoveries of ancient Chinese Bronze Age figures at Sanxingdui, some more than twice human size, have disturbed many ideas held about early Chinese civilization, since only much smaller bronzes were previously known.[4]

Some undoubtedly advanced cultures, such as the

Indus Valley civilization, appear to have had no monumental sculpture at all, though producing very sophisticated figurines and seals. The Mississippian culture seems to have been progressing towards its use, with small stone figures, when it collapsed. Other cultures, such as ancient Egypt and the Easter Island culture
, seem to have devoted enormous resources to very large-scale monumental sculpture from a very early stage.

The collecting of sculpture, including that of earlier periods, goes back some 2,000 years in Greece, China and Mesoamerica, and many collections were available on semi-public display long before the modern museum was invented. From the 20th century the relatively restricted range of subjects found in large sculpture expanded greatly, with abstract subjects and the use or representation of any type of subject now common. Today much sculpture is made for intermittent display in galleries and museums, and the ability to transport and store the increasingly large works is a factor in their construction.

Small decorative

Tanagra figurines were a major industry, or in East Asian and Pre-Columbian art. Small sculpted fittings for furniture and other objects go well back into antiquity, as in the Nimrud ivories, Begram ivories and finds from the tomb of Tutankhamun
.

Portrait sculpture began in Egypt, where the Narmer Palette shows a ruler of the 32nd century BCE, and Mesopotamia, where we have 27 surviving statues of Gudea, who ruled Lagash c. 2144–2124 BCE. In ancient Greece and Rome, the erection of a portrait statue in a public place was almost the highest mark of honour, and the ambition of the elite, who might also be depicted on a coin.[5]

In other cultures such as Egypt and the Near East public statues were almost exclusively the preserve of the ruler, with other wealthy people only being portrayed in their tombs. Rulers are typically the only people given portraits in Pre-Columbian cultures, beginning with the Olmec colossal heads of about 3,000 years ago. East Asian portrait sculpture was entirely religious, with leading clergy being commemorated with statues, especially the founders of monasteries, but not rulers, or ancestors. The Mediterranean tradition revived, initially only for tomb effigies and coins, in the Middle Ages, but expanded greatly in the Renaissance, which invented new forms such as the personal portrait medal.

Animals are, with the human figure, the earliest subject for sculpture, and have always been popular, sometimes realistic, but often imaginary monsters; in China animals and monsters are almost the only traditional subjects for stone sculpture outside tombs and temples. The kingdom of plants is important only in jewellery and decorative reliefs, but these form almost all the large sculpture of Byzantine art and Islamic art, and are very important in most Eurasian traditions, where motifs such as the palmette and vine scroll have passed east and west for over two millennia.

One form of sculpture found in many prehistoric cultures around the world is specially enlarged versions of ordinary tools, weapons or vessels created in impractical precious materials, for either some form of ceremonial use or display or as offerings.

Olmec Mexico, and Neolithic Europe, and in early Mesopotamia large pottery shapes were produced in stone. Bronze was used in Europe and China for large axes and blades, like the Oxborough Dirk
.

Materials and techniques

Sumerian male worshipper, alabaster with shell eyes, 2750−2600 BCE

The materials used in sculpture are diverse, changing throughout history. The classic materials, with outstanding durability, are metal, especially bronze, stone and pottery, with wood, bone and antler less durable but cheaper options. Precious materials such as gold, silver, jade, and ivory are often used for small luxury works, and sometimes in larger ones, as in chryselephantine statues. More common and less expensive materials were used for sculpture for wider consumption, including hardwoods (such as oak, box/boxwood, and lime/linden); terracotta and other ceramics, wax (a very common material for models for casting, and receiving the impressions of cylinder seals and engraved gems), and cast metals such as pewter and zinc (spelter). But a vast number of other materials have been used as part of sculptures, in ethnographic and ancient works as much as modern ones.

Sculptures are often painted, but commonly lose their paint to time, or restorers. Many different painting techniques have been used in making sculpture, including tempera, oil painting, gilding, house paint, aerosol, enamel and sandblasting.[2][6]

Many sculptors seek new ways and materials to make art. One of

Chinese scholar's rocks
have been appreciated for many centuries.

Stone

Temple of Aphaea, based on analysis of pigment traces,[7]
c. 500 BCE

seal rings
.

The copying of an original statue in stone, which was very important for ancient Greek statues, which are nearly all known from copies, was traditionally achieved by "pointing", along with more freehand methods. Pointing involved setting up a grid of string squares on a wooden frame surrounding the original, and then measuring the position on the grid and the distance between grid and statue of a series of individual points, and then using this information to carve into the block from which the copy is made.[8]

Metal

Ludwig Gies, cast iron plaquette, 8 x 9.8 cm, Refugees, 1915

silversmithing
.

Casting is a group of manufacturing processes by which a liquid material (bronze, copper, glass, aluminum, iron) is (usually) poured into a mould, which contains a hollow cavity of the desired shape, and then allowed to solidify. The solid casting is then ejected or broken out to complete the process,[9] although a final stage of "cold work" may follow on the finished cast. Casting may be used to form hot liquid metals or various materials that cold set after mixing of components (such as epoxies, concrete, plaster and clay). Casting is most often used for making complex shapes that would be otherwise difficult or uneconomical to make by other methods. The oldest surviving casting is a copper Mesopotamian frog from 3200 BCE.[10] Specific techniques include lost-wax casting, plaster mould casting, and sand casting.

TIG welding. Oxy-fuel is probably the most common method of welding when it comes to creating steel sculptures because it is the easiest to use for shaping the steel as well as making clean and less noticeable joins of the steel. The key to Oxy-fuel welding is heating each piece of metal to be joined evenly until all are red and have a shine to them. Once that shine is on each piece, that shine will soon become a 'pool' where the metal is liquified and the welder must get the pools to join, fusing the metal. Once cooled off, the location where the pools joined are now one continuous piece of metal. Also used heavily in Oxy-fuel sculpture creation is forging. Forging
is the process of heating metal to a certain point to soften it enough to be shaped into different forms. One very common example is heating the end of a steel rod and hitting the red heated tip with a hammer while on an anvil to form a point. In between hammer swings, the forger rotates the rod and gradually forms a sharpened point from the blunt end of a steel rod.

Glass

Blown glass
)
A carved wooden Bodhisattva from China's Song dynasty 960–1279, Shanghai Museum

Glass may be used for sculpture through a wide range of working techniques, though the use of it for large works is a recent development. It can be carved, though with considerable difficulty; the Roman Lycurgus Cup is all but unique.[11] There are various ways of moulding glass: hot casting can be done by ladling molten glass into moulds that have been created by pressing shapes into sand, carved graphite or detailed plaster/silica moulds. Kiln casting glass involves heating chunks of glass in a kiln until they are liquid and flow into a waiting mould below it in the kiln. Hot glass can also be blown and/or hot sculpted with hand tools either as a solid mass or as part of a blown object. More recent techniques involve chiseling and bonding plate glass with polymer silicates and UV light.[12]

Pottery

Further information: Pottery § Shaping methods

Pottery is one of the oldest materials for sculpture, as well as clay being the medium in which many sculptures cast in metal are originally modelled for casting. Sculptors often build small preliminary works called maquettes of ephemeral materials such as plaster of Paris, wax, unfired clay, or plasticine.[13] Many cultures have produced pottery which combines a function as a vessel with a sculptural form, and small figurines have often been as popular as they are in modern Western culture. Stamps and moulds were used by most ancient civilizations, from ancient Rome and Mesopotamia to China.[14]

Wood carving

Detail of Crucifixion of Jesus Christ, Spanish, wood and polychrome, 1793

Wood carving has been extremely widely practiced, but survives much less well than the other main materials, being vulnerable to decay, insect damage, and fire. It therefore forms an important hidden element in the art history of many cultures.[3] Outdoor wood sculpture does not last long in most parts of the world, so that we have little idea how the totem pole tradition developed. Many of the most important sculptures of China and Japan in particular are in wood, and the great majority of African sculpture and that of Oceania and other regions.

Wood is light, so suitable for masks and other sculpture intended to be carried, and can take very fine detail. It is also much easier to work than stone. It has been very often painted after carving, but the paint wears less well than the wood, and is often missing in surviving pieces. Painted wood is often technically described as "wood and polychrome". Typically a layer of gesso or plaster is applied to the wood, and then the paint is applied to that.

Soft materials

Three dimensional work incorporating unconventional materials such as cloth, fur, plastics, rubber and nylon, that can thus be stuffed, sewn, hung, draped or woven, are known as soft sculptures. Well known creators of soft sculptures include Claes Oldenburg, Yayoi Kusama, Eva Hesse, Sarah Lucas and Magdalena Abakanowicz.[15]

Social status of sculptors

Nuremberg sculptor Adam Kraft, self-portrait from St Lorenz Church, 1490s

Worldwide, sculptors have usually been tradespeople whose work is unsigned; in some traditions, for example China, where sculpture did not share the prestige of

literati painting, this has affected the status of sculpture itself.[16] Even in ancient Greece, where sculptors such as Phidias became famous, they appear to have retained much the same social status as other artisans, and perhaps not much greater financial rewards, although some signed their works.[17] In the Middle Ages artists such as the 12th-century Gislebertus sometimes signed their work, and were sought after by different cities, especially from the Trecento onwards in Italy, with figures such as Arnolfo di Cambio, and Nicola Pisano and his son Giovanni. Goldsmiths and jewellers, dealing with precious materials and often doubling as bankers, belonged to powerful guilds and had considerable status, often holding civic office. Many sculptors also practised in other arts; Andrea del Verrocchio also painted, and Giovanni Pisano, Michelangelo, and Jacopo Sansovino were architects
. Some sculptors maintained large workshops. Even in the Renaissance the physical nature of the work was perceived by Leonardo da Vinci and others as pulling down the status of sculpture in the arts, though the reputation of Michelangelo perhaps put this long-held idea to rest.

From the High Renaissance artists such as Michelangelo, Leone Leoni and Giambologna could become wealthy, and ennobled, and enter the circle of princes, after a period of sharp argument over the relative status of sculpture and painting.[18] Much decorative sculpture on buildings remained a trade, but sculptors producing individual pieces were recognised on a level with painters. From the 18th century or earlier sculpture also attracted middle-class students, although it was slower to do so than painting. Women sculptors took longer to appear than women painters, and were less prominent until the 20th century.

Anti-sculpture movements

Buddhas of Bamyan by the Taliban
.

History

Venus of Willendorf, c. 24,000–26,000 BP

Prehistoric periods

Europe

The earliest undisputed examples of sculpture belong to the

cave art, the people of this culture developed finely-crafted stone tools, manufacturing pendants, bracelets, ivory beads, and bone-flutes, as well as three-dimensional figurines.[20][21]

The 30 cm tall

anthropomorphic lion-human figure carved from woolly mammoth ivory. It has been dated to about 35–40,000 BP, making it, along with the Venus of Hohle Fels, the oldest known uncontested examples of sculpture.[22]

Much surviving

Tuc d'Audobert caves in France, where around 12–17,000 years ago a masterful sculptor used a spatula-like stone tool and fingers to model a pair of large bison in clay against a limestone rock.[25]

With the beginning of the

European Iron Age and the Bronze Age Trundholm sun chariot.[27]

Ancient Near East

From the

'Ain Ghazal Statues from around 7200 and 6500 BCE. These are from modern Jordan, made of lime plaster and reeds, and about half life-size; there are 15 statues, some with two heads side by side, and 15 busts. Small clay figures of people and animals are found at many sites across the Near East from the Pre-Pottery Neolithic
, and represent the start of a more-or-less continuous tradition in the region.

Ancient Near East

Main articles: Art of Mesopotamia, Assyrian sculpture, and Persian art
Cylinder seal with its impression on clay; serpopards and eagles, Uruk Period, 4100–3000 BCE

The

Protoliterate period in Mesopotamia, dominated by Uruk, saw the production of sophisticated works like the Warka Vase and cylinder seals. The Guennol Lioness is an outstanding small limestone figure from Elam of about 3000–2800 BCE, part human and part lioness.[28] A little later there are a number of figures of large-eyed priests and worshippers, mostly in alabaster and up to a foot high, who attended temple cult images of the deity, but very few of these have survived.[29] Sculptures from the Sumerian and Akkadian period generally had large, staring eyes, and long beards on the men. Many masterpieces have also been found at the Royal Cemetery at Ur (c. 2650 BCE), including the two figures of a Ram in a Thicket, the Copper Bull and a bull's head on one of the Lyres of Ur.[30]

From the many subsequent periods before the ascendency of the

stelae, votive offerings, or ones probably commemorating victories and showing feasts, are also found from temples, which unlike more official ones lack inscriptions that would explain them;[33] the fragmentary Stele of the Vultures is an early example of the inscribed type,[34] and the Assyrian Black Obelisk of Shalmaneser III a large and solid late one.[35]

The conquest of the whole of Mesopotamia and much surrounding territory by the Assyrians created a larger and wealthier state than the region had known before, and very grandiose art in palaces and public places, no doubt partly intended to match the splendour of the art of the neighbouring Egyptian empire. Unlike earlier states, the Assyrians could use easily carved stone from northern Iraq, and did so in great quantity. The Assyrians developed a style of extremely

Lachish reliefs showing a campaign. They produced very little sculpture in the round, except for colossal guardian figures of the human-headed lamassu, which are sculpted in high relief on two sides of a rectangular block, with the heads effectively in the round (and also five legs, so that both views seem complete). Even before dominating the region they had continued the cylinder seal tradition with designs which are often exceptionally energetic and refined.[36]

Ancient Egypt

Bust of Nefertiti, 1345 BCE, Egyptian Museum of Berlin
See also: Art of ancient Egypt and Amarna art

The

Ahkenaten,[40] and some other periods such as Dynasty XII, the idealized features of rulers, like other Egyptian artistic conventions, changed little until after the Greek conquest.[41]

Egyptian

ka portion of the soul, and so we have a good number of less conventionalized statues of well-off administrators and their wives, many in wood as Egypt is one of the few places in the world where the climate allows wood to survive over millennia. The so-called reserve heads, plain hairless heads, are especially naturalistic. Early tombs also contained small models of the slaves, animals, buildings and objects such as boats necessary for the deceased to continue his lifestyle in the afterworld, and later Ushabti figures.[43]

  • Facsimile of the Narmer Palette, c. 3100 BCE, which already shows the canonical Egyptian profile view and proportions of the figure
    Facsimile of the Narmer Palette, c. 3100 BCE, which already shows the canonical Egyptian profile view and proportions of the figure
  • Menkaura (Mycerinus) and queen, Old Kingdom, Dynasty 4, 2490–2472 BCE. The formality of the pose is reduced by the queen's arm round her husband
    Menkaura
    (Mycerinus) and queen, Old Kingdom, Dynasty 4, 2490–2472 BCE. The formality of the pose is reduced by the queen's arm round her husband
  • Wooden tomb models, Dynasty XI; a high administrator counts his cattle
    Wooden tomb models, Dynasty XI; a high administrator counts his cattle
  • Tutankhamun's mask, c. late Eighteenth dynasty, Egyptian Museum
    Tutankhamun's mask, c. late Eighteenth dynasty, Egyptian Museum
  • The Younger Memnon c. 1250 BCE, British Museum
    The Younger Memnon c. 1250 BCE, British Museum
  • Osiris on a lapis lazuli pillar in the middle, flanked by Horus on the left, and Isis on the right, 22nd dynasty, Louvre
    Osiris on a lapis lazuli pillar in the middle, flanked by Horus on the left, and Isis on the right, 22nd dynasty, Louvre
  • The ka statue provided a physical place for the ka to manifest. Egyptian Museum, Cairo
    The
    Egyptian Museum, Cairo
  • Block statue of Pa-Ankh-Ra, ship master, bearing a statue of Ptah. Late Period, c. 650–633 BCE, Cabinet des Médailles
    Late Period
    , c. 650–633 BCE, Cabinet des Médailles

Europe

Ancient Greece

Main article: Ancient Greek sculpture
ancient Greek bronze sculpture
, 5th century BCE, close up head detail

The first distinctive style of

Cycladic period (3rd millennium BCE), where marble figures, usually female and small, are represented in an elegantly simplified geometrical style. Most typical is a standing pose with arms crossed in front, but other figures are shown in different poses, including a complicated figure of a harpist seated on a chair.[44]

The subsequent Minoan and Mycenaean cultures developed sculpture further, under influence from Syria and elsewhere, but it is in the later Archaic period from around 650 BCE that the kouros developed. These are large standing statues of naked youths, found in temples and tombs, with the kore as the clothed female equivalent, with elaborately dressed hair; both have the "archaic smile". They seem to have served a number of functions, perhaps sometimes representing deities and sometimes the person buried in a grave, as with the Kroisos Kouros. They are clearly influenced by Egyptian and Syrian styles, but the Greek artists were much more ready to experiment within the style.

During the 6th century Greek sculpture developed rapidly, becoming more naturalistic, and with much more active and varied figure poses in narrative scenes, though still within idealized conventions. Sculptured

Temple of Aphaea in Aegina (much now in Munich).[45] Most Greek sculpture originally included at least some colour; the Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek Museum in Copenhagen, Denmark, has done extensive research and recreation of the original colours.[46][47]
Classical
High Classical high relief from the Elgin Marbles, which originally decorated the Parthenon, c. 447–433 BCE

There are fewer original remains from the first phase of the Classical period, often called the Severe style; free-standing statues were now mostly made in bronze, which always had value as scrap. The Severe style lasted from around 500 in reliefs, and soon after 480 in statues, to about 450. The relatively rigid poses of figures relaxed, and asymmetrical turning positions and oblique views became common, and deliberately sought. This was combined with a better understanding of anatomy and the harmonious structure of sculpted figures, and the pursuit of naturalistic representation as an aim, which had not been present before. Excavations at the Temple of Zeus, Olympia since 1829 have revealed the largest group of remains, from about 460, of which many are in the Louvre.[48]

The "High Classical" period lasted only a few decades from about 450 to 400, but has had a momentous influence on art, and retains a special prestige, despite a very restricted number of original survivals. The best known works are the

Parthenon Marbles, traditionally (since Plutarch) executed by a team led by the most famous ancient Greek sculptor Phidias, active from about 465–425, who was in his own day more famous for his colossal chryselephantine Statue of Zeus at Olympia (c. 432), one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, his Athena Parthenos (438), the cult image of the Parthenon, and Athena Promachos, a colossal bronze figure that stood next to the Parthenon; all of these are lost but are known from many representations. He is also credited as the creator of some life-size bronze statues known only from later copies whose identification is controversial, including the Ludovisi Hermes.[49]

The High Classical style continued to develop realism and sophistication in the human figure, and improved the depiction of drapery (clothes), using it to add to the impact of active poses. Facial expressions were usually very restrained, even in combat scenes. The composition of groups of figures in reliefs and on pediments combined complexity and harmony in a way that had a permanent influence on Western art. Relief could be very high indeed, as in the Parthenon illustration below, where most of the leg of the warrior is completely detached from the background, as were the missing parts; relief this high made sculptures more subject to damage.[50] The Late Classical style developed the free-standing female nude statue, supposedly an innovation of Praxiteles, and developed increasingly complex and subtle poses that were interesting when viewed from a number of angles, as well as more expressive faces; both trends were to be taken much further in the Hellenistic period.[51]

Hellenistic
The Pergamene style of the Hellenistic period, from the Pergamon Altar, early 2nd century
Small Greek terracotta figurines were very popular as ornaments in the home

The

The Dying Gaul (illustrated at top), which we know was part of a group actually commissioned for Pergamon in about 228 BCE, from which the Ludovisi Gaul was also a copy. The group called the Farnese Bull, possibly a 2nd-century marble original, is still larger and more complex,[53]

Hellenistic sculpture greatly expanded the range of subjects represented, partly as a result of greater general prosperity, and the emergence of a very wealthy class who had large houses decorated with sculpture, although we know that some examples of subjects that seem best suited to the home, such as children with animals, were in fact placed in temples or other public places. For a much more popular home decoration market there were Tanagra figurines, and those from other centres where small pottery figures were produced on an industrial scale, some religious but others showing animals and elegantly dressed ladies. Sculptors became more technically skilled in representing facial expressions conveying a wide variety of emotions and the portraiture of individuals, as well representing different ages and races. The reliefs from the Mausoleum are rather atypical in that respect; most work was free-standing, and group compositions with several figures to be seen in the round, like the Laocoon and the Pergamon group celebrating victory over the Gauls became popular, having been rare before. The Barberini Faun, showing a satyr sprawled asleep, presumably after drink, is an example of the moral relaxation of the period, and the readiness to create large and expensive sculptures of subjects that fall short of the heroic.[54]

After the conquests of Alexander

Hellenistic culture was dominant in the courts of most of the Near East, and some of Central Asia, and increasingly being adopted by European elites, especially in Italy, where Greek colonies initially controlled most of the South. Hellenistic art, and artists, spread very widely, and was especially influential in the expanding Roman Republic and when it encountered Buddhism in the easternmost extensions of the Hellenistic area. The massive so-called Alexander Sarcophagus found in Sidon in modern Lebanon, was probably made there at the start of the period by expatriate Greek artists for a Hellenized Persian governor.[55] The wealth of the period led to a greatly increased production of luxury forms of small sculpture, including engraved gems
and cameos, jewellery, and gold and silverware.

Europe after the Greeks

Roman sculpture
Main article: Roman sculpture
Section of Trajan's Column, CE 113, with scenes from the Dacian Wars
Augustan state Greco-Roman style on the Ara Pacis, 13 BCE

Early Roman art was influenced by the art of Greece and that of the neighbouring

patrician sculpture became largely an extension of the Hellenistic style, from which specifically Roman elements are hard to disentangle, especially as so much Greek sculpture survives only in copies of the Roman period.[56] By the 2nd century BCE, "most of the sculptors working at Rome" were Greek,[57] often enslaved in conquests such as that of Corinth (146 BCE), and sculptors continued to be mostly Greeks, often slaves, whose names are very rarely recorded. Vast numbers of Greek statues were imported to Rome, whether as booty or the result of extortion or commerce, and temples were often decorated with re-used Greek works.[58]

A native Italian style can be seen in the tomb monuments, which very often featured portrait busts, of prosperous middle-class Romans, and portraiture is arguably the main strength of Roman sculpture. There are no survivals from the tradition of masks of ancestors that were worn in processions at the funerals of the great families and otherwise displayed in the home, but many of the busts that survive must represent ancestral figures, perhaps from the large family tombs like the Tomb of the Scipios or the later mausolea outside the city. The famous bronze head supposedly of Lucius Junius Brutus is very variously dated, but taken as a very rare survival of Italic style under the Republic, in the preferred medium of bronze.[59] Similarly stern and forceful heads are seen on coins of the Late Republic, and in the Imperial period coins as well as busts sent around the Empire to be placed in the basilicas of provincial cities were the main visual form of imperial propaganda; even Londinium had a near-colossal statue of Nero, though far smaller than the 30-metre-high Colossus of Nero in Rome, now lost.[60]

The Romans did not generally attempt to compete with free-standing Greek works of heroic exploits from history or mythology, but from early on produced historical works in relief, culminating in the great

Campana reliefs were cheaper pottery versions of marble reliefs and the taste for relief was from the imperial period expanded to the sarcophagus. All forms of luxury small sculpture continued to be patronized, and quality could be extremely high, as in the silver Warren Cup, glass Lycurgus Cup, and large cameos like the Gemma Augustea, Gonzaga Cameo and the "Great Cameo of France".[62] For a much wider section of the population, moulded relief decoration of pottery vessels and small figurines were produced in great quantity and often considerable quality.[63]

After moving through a late 2nd-century "baroque" phase,[64] in the 3rd century, Roman art largely abandoned, or simply became unable to produce, sculpture in the classical tradition, a change whose causes remain much discussed. Even the most important imperial monuments now showed stumpy, large-eyed figures in a harsh frontal style, in simple compositions emphasizing power at the expense of grace. The contrast is famously illustrated in the Arch of Constantine of 315 in Rome, which combines sections in the new style with roundels in the earlier full Greco-Roman style taken from elsewhere, and the Four Tetrarchs (c. 305) from the new capital of Constantinople, now in Venice. Ernst Kitzinger found in both monuments the same "stubby proportions, angular movements, an ordering of parts through symmetry and repetition and a rendering of features and drapery folds through incisions rather than modelling... The hallmark of the style wherever it appears consists of an emphatic hardness, heaviness and angularity—in short, an almost complete rejection of the classical tradition".[65]

This revolution in style shortly preceded the period in which Christianity was adopted by the Roman state and the great majority of the people, leading to the end of large religious sculpture, with large statues now only used for emperors. However, rich Christians continued to commission reliefs for sarcophagi, as in the Sarcophagus of Junius Bassus, and very small sculpture, especially in ivory, was continued by Christians, building on the style of the consular diptych.[66]

Early Medieval and Byzantine
Silver monster on a chape, Scottish or Anglo-Saxon, St Ninian's Isle Treasure, c. 800
The Gero Cross, c. 965–970, Cologne, Germany, the first great example of the revival of large sculpture

The

Scythian art and the hybrid Christian and animal style productions of Insular art. Following the continuing Byzantine tradition, Carolingian art revived ivory carving, often in panels for the treasure bindings of grand illuminated manuscripts, as well as crozier
heads and other small fittings.

Palatine Chapel in Aachen around 800. These continued to grow in popularity, especially in Germany and Italy. The runestones of the Nordic world, the Pictish stones of Scotland and possibly the high cross
reliefs of Christian Great Britain, were northern sculptural traditions that bridged the period of Christianization.

Romanesque
Main article: Romanesque art
Brunswick Lion, 1166, the first large hollow casting of a figure since antiquity, 1.78 metres tall and 2.79 metres long
Shrine of the Three Kings in Cologne Cathedral

Beginning in roughly 1000 A.D., there was a rebirth of artistic production in all Europe, led by general economic growth in production and commerce, and the new style of

Vézelay and Moissac and in Spain Silos.[69]

Romanesque art was characterised by a very vigorous style in both sculpture and painting. The capitals of columns were never more exciting than in this period, when they were often carved with complete scenes with several figures.

high relief
was above all the sculptural mode of the period. Compositions usually had little depth, and needed to be flexible to squeeze themselves into the shapes of capitals, and church typanums; the tension between a tightly enclosing frame, from which the composition sometimes escapes, is a recurrent theme in Romanesque art. Figures still often varied in size in relation to their importance portraiture hardly existed.

Objects in precious materials such as ivory and metal had a very high status in the period, much more so than monumental sculpture — we know the names of more makers of these than painters, illuminators or architect-masons. Metalwork, including decoration in

zoomorphic forms; surviving examples are mostly in brass. Many wax impressions from impressive seals survive on charters and documents, although Romanesque coins are generally not of great aesthetic interest.[71]

The Cloisters Cross is an unusually large ivory crucifix, with complex carving including many figures of prophets and others, which has been attributed to one of the relatively few artists whose name is known, Master Hugo, who also illuminated manuscripts. Like many pieces it was originally partly coloured. The Lewis chessmen are well-preserved examples of small ivories, of which many pieces or fragments remain from croziers, plaques, pectoral crosses and similar objects.

Gothic
Main article: Gothic art
French ivory Virgin and Child, end of 13th century, 25 cm high, curving to fit the shape of the ivory tusk

The Gothic period is essentially defined by Gothic architecture, and does not entirely fit with the development of style in sculpture in either its start or finish. The facades of large churches, especially around doors, continued to have large typanums, but also rows of sculpted figures spreading around them. The statues on the Western (Royal) Portal at Chartres Cathedral (c. 1145) show an elegant but exaggerated columnar elongation, but those on the south transept portal, from 1215 to 1220, show a more naturalistic style and increasing detachment from the wall behind, and some awareness of the classical tradition. These trends were continued in the west portal at Reims Cathedral of a few years later, where the figures are almost in the round, as became usual as Gothic spread across Europe.[72]

In Italy

Burgundy and Flanders around 1400.[74] Late Gothic sculpture continued in the North, with a fashion for very large wooden sculpted altarpieces with increasingly virtuoso carving and large numbers agitated expressive figures; most surviving examples are in Germany, after much iconoclasm elsewhere. Tilman Riemenschneider, Veit Stoss and others continued the style well into the 16th century, gradually absorbing Italian Renaissance influences.[75]

Life-size tomb effigies in stone or

Duc de Berry's Holy Thorn Reliquary, until they ran short of money, when they were melted down again for cash.[78]

Renaissance

Michelangelo, Pietà, 1499
Sculpture in the Renaissance Period and Italian Renaissance sculpture

Renaissance sculpture proper is often taken to begin with the famous competition for the doors of the

Florence Baptistry in 1403, from which the trial models submitted by the winner, Lorenzo Ghiberti, and Filippo Brunelleschi survive. Ghiberti's doors are still in place, but were undoubtedly eclipsed by his second pair for the other entrance, the so-called Gates of Paradise, which took him from 1425 to 1452, and are dazzlingly confident classicizing compositions with varied depths of relief allowing extensive backgrounds.[79] The intervening years had seen Ghiberti's early assistant Donatello develop with seminal statues including his Davids in marble (1408–09) and bronze (1440s), and his Equestrian statue of Gattamelata, as well as reliefs.[80] A leading figure in the later period was Andrea del Verrocchio, best known for his equestrian statue of Bartolomeo Colleoni in Venice;[81] his pupil Leonardo da Vinci designed an equine sculpture in 1482 The Horse for Milan, but only succeeded in making a 24-foot (7.3 m) clay model which was destroyed by French archers in 1499, and his other ambitious sculptural plans were never completed.[82]

The period was marked by a great increase in patronage of sculpture by the state for public art and by the wealthy for their homes; especially in Italy, public sculpture remains a crucial element in the appearance of historic city centres. Church sculpture mostly moved inside just as outside public monuments became common. Portrait sculpture, usually in busts, became popular in Italy around 1450, with the Neapolitan Francesco Laurana specializing in young women in meditative poses, while Antonio Rossellino and others more often depicted knobbly-faced men of affairs, but also young children.[83] The portrait medal invented by Pisanello also often depicted women; relief plaquettes were another new small form of sculpture in cast metal.

Michelangelo was an active sculptor from about 1500 to 1520, and his great masterpieces including his

Pietà, Moses, and pieces for the Tomb of Pope Julius II and Medici Chapel could not be ignored by subsequent sculptors. His iconic David (1504) has a contrapposto pose, borrowed from classical sculpture. It differs from previous representations of the subject in that David is depicted before his battle with Goliath and not after the giant's defeat. Instead of being shown victorious, as Donatello and Verocchio had done, David looks tense and battle ready.[84]

Mannerist

Main article: Mannerism
Northern Mannerist life-size bronze, made in 1593 for Rudolf II, Holy Roman Emperor
.

As in painting, early Italian

Perseus with the head of Medusa is certainly a masterpiece, designed with eight angles of view, another Mannerist characteristic, but is indeed mannered compared to the Davids of Michelangelo and Donatello.[86] Originally a goldsmith, his famous gold and enamel Salt Cellar (1543) was his first sculpture, and shows his talent at its best.[87]
As these examples show, the period extended the range of secular subjects for large works beyond portraits, with mythological figures especially favoured; previously these had mostly been found in small works.

Small bronze figures for collector's cabinets, often mythological subjects with nudes, were a popular Renaissance form at which Giambologna, originally Flemish but based in Florence, excelled in the later part of the century, also creating life-size sculptures, of which two joined the collection in the Piazza della Signoria. He and his followers devised elegant elongated examples of the figura serpentinata, often of two intertwined figures, that were interesting from all angles.[88]

Baroque and Rococo

Main article: Baroque sculpture
Gian Lorenzo Bernini, Apollo and Daphne in the Galleria Borghese, 1622–1625

In Baroque sculpture, groups of figures assumed new importance, and there was a dynamic movement and energy of human forms— they spiralled around an empty central vortex, or reached outwards into the surrounding space. Baroque sculpture often had multiple ideal viewing angles, and reflected a general continuation of the Renaissance move away from the relief to sculpture created in the round, and designed to be placed in the middle of a large space—elaborate fountains such as Bernini's

Hellenistic and later Roman sculpture, rather than that of the more "Classical" periods as they are seen today.[90]

The

Roman Catholicism as in the late Middle Ages. Statues of rulers and the nobility became increasingly popular. In the 18th century much sculpture continued on Baroque lines—the Trevi Fountain was only completed in 1762. Rococo style was better suited to smaller works, and arguably found its ideal sculptural form in early European porcelain, and interior decorative schemes in wood or plaster such as those in French domestic interiors and Austrian and Bavarian pilgrimage churches.[92]

Neo-Classical

Main article:
Neoclassical sculpture
Antonio Canova: Psyche Revived by Love's Kiss, 1787

The

Neoclassical style that arrived in the late 18th century gave great emphasis to sculpture. Jean-Antoine Houdon exemplifies the penetrating portrait sculpture the style could produce, and Antonio Canova's nudes the idealist aspect of the movement. The Neoclassical period was one of the great ages of public sculpture, though its "classical" prototypes were more likely to be Roman copies of Hellenistic sculptures. In sculpture, the most familiar representatives are the Italian Antonio Canova, the Englishman John Flaxman and the Dane Bertel Thorvaldsen. The European neoclassical manner also took hold in the United States, where its pinnacle occurred somewhat later and is exemplified in the sculptures of Hiram Powers
.

Asia

Greco-Buddhist sculpture and Asia

Main article: Greco-Buddhist art
Buddha, 1st–2nd century CE, Gandhara

Corinthian capital appearing.[93]

The origins of Greco-Buddhist art are to be found in the Hellenistic

Dunhuang Caves, and ultimately the sculpted figure in China, Korea, and Japan.[94]

China

Main articles: Chinese art, Chinese ceramics, Lacquerware, and Chinese jade
Northern Song dynasty

zoomorphic decoration, but avoid the human figure, unlike the huge figures only recently discovered at Sanxingdui.[95] The spectacular Terracotta Army was assembled for the tomb of Qin Shi Huang, the first emperor of a unified China from 221 to 210 BCE, as a grand imperial version of the figures long placed in tombs to enable the deceased to enjoy the same lifestyle in the afterlife as when alive, replacing actual sacrifices of very early periods. Smaller figures in pottery or wood were placed in tombs for many centuries afterwards, reaching a peak of quality in Tang dynasty tomb figures.[96] The tradition of unusually large pottery figures persisted in China, through Tang sancai tomb figures to later Buddhist statues such as the near life-size set of Yixian glazed pottery luohans
and later figures for temples and tombs. These came to replace earlier equivalents in wood.

Native Chinese religions do not usually use cult images of deities, or even represent them, and large religious sculpture is nearly all Buddhist, dating mostly from the 4th to the 14th century, and initially using Greco-Buddhist models arriving via the Silk Road. Buddhism is also the context of all large portrait sculpture; in total contrast to some other areas, in medieval China even painted images of the emperor were regarded as private. Imperial tombs have spectacular avenues of approach lined with real and mythological animals on a scale matching Egypt, and smaller versions decorate temples and palaces.[97]

Small Buddhist figures and groups were produced to a very high quality in a range of media,

Chinese porcelain
and other media, which became an important export.

Japan

See also: Japanese art, Japanese sculpture, and List of National Treasures of Japan (sculptures)
Nara, Japan

Towards the end of the long Neolithic Jōmon period, some pottery vessels were "flame-rimmed" with extravagant extensions to the rim that can only be called sculptural,[103] and very stylized pottery dogū figures were produced, many with the characteristic "snow-goggle" eyes. During the Kofun period of the 3rd to 6th century CE, haniwa terracotta figures of humans and animals in a simplistic style were erected outside important tombs. The arrival of Buddhism in the 6th century brought with it sophisticated traditions in sculpture, Chinese styles mediated via Korea. The 7th-century Hōryū-ji and its contents have survived more intact than any East Asian Buddhist temple of its date, with works including a Shaka Trinity of 623 in bronze, showing the historical Buddha flanked by two bodhisattvas and also the Guardian Kings of the Four Directions.[104]

Jōchō is said to be one of the greatest Buddhist sculptors not only in Heian period but also in the history of Buddhist statues in Japan. Jōchō redefined the body shape of Buddha statues by perfecting the technique of "yosegi zukuri" (寄木造り) which is a combination of several woods. The peaceful expression and graceful figure of the Buddha statue that he made completed a Japanese style of sculpture of Buddha statues called "Jōchō yō" (Jōchō style, 定朝様) and determined the style of Japanese Buddhist statues of the later period. His achievement dramatically raised the social status of busshi (Buddhist sculptor) in Japan.[105]

In the

Kofuku-ji, where many Buddha statues had been lost in wars and fires.[106]

Almost all subsequent significant large sculpture in Japan was Buddhist, with some Shinto equivalents, and after Buddhism declined in Japan in the 15th century, monumental sculpture became largely architectural decoration and less significant.[107] However sculptural work in the decorative arts was developed to a remarkable level of technical achievement and refinement in small objects such as inro and netsuke in many materials, and metal tosogu or Japanese sword mountings. In the 19th century there were export industries of small bronze sculptures of extreme virtuosity, ivory and porcelain figurines, and other types of small sculpture, increasingly emphasizing technical accomplishment.

  • 'Flame-style' vessel, Neolithic Jōmon period; c. 2750 BCE; earthenware with carved and applied decoration; height: 61 cm, diameter: 55.8 cm
    'Flame-style' vessel, Neolithic Jōmon period; c. 2750 BCE; earthenware with carved and applied decoration; height: 61 cm, diameter: 55.8 cm
  • Dogū with "snow-goggle" eyes, 1000–400 BCE
    Dogū with "snow-goggle" eyes, 1000–400 BCE
  • 6th-century haniwa figure
    6th-century haniwa figure
  • Kongo Rishiki (Guardian Deity) at the Central Gate of Hōryū-ji
    Kongo Rishiki (Guardian Deity) at the Central Gate of Hōryū-ji
  • Taishakuten Śakra, 839, Tō-ji
    Taishakuten Śakra, 839, Tō-ji
  • Muchaku by Unkei, 1212, Kōfuku-ji, National Treasure
    Muchaku by Unkei, 1212, Kōfuku-ji, National Treasure
  • Tsuba sword fitting with a "Rabbit Viewing the Autumn Moon", bronze, gold and silver, between 1670 and 1744
    Tsuba
    sword fitting with a "Rabbit Viewing the Autumn Moon", bronze, gold and silver, between 1670 and 1744
  • Izumiya Tomotada, netsuke in the form of a dog, late 18th century
    Izumiya Tomotada, netsuke in the form of a dog, late 18th century
  • Eagle by Suzuki Chokichi, 1892, Tokyo National Museum
    Eagle by Suzuki Chokichi, 1892, Tokyo National Museum

Indian subcontinent

See also:
Sculpture in South Asia, List of rock-cut temples in India, and Sculpture of Bangladesh
Hindu Gupta terracotta relief, 5th century CE, of Krishna Killing the Horse Demon Keshi

The first known

Asoka from 270 to 232 BCE, and the Pillars of Ashoka he erected around India, carrying his edicts and topped by famous sculptures of animals, mostly lions, of which six survive.[109] Large amounts of figurative sculpture, mostly in relief, survive from Early Buddhist pilgrimage stupas, above all Sanchi; these probably developed out of a tradition using wood that also embraced Hinduism.[110]

The pink sandstone Hindu,

Pallava dynasty.[114]

South-East Asia

9th-century Khmer lintel

The sculpture of the region tends to be characterised by a high degree of ornamentation, as seen in the great monuments of Hindu and Buddhist Khmer sculpture (9th to 13th centuries) at Angkor Wat and elsewhere, the enormous 9th-century Buddhist complex at Borobudur in Java, and the Hindu monuments of Bali.[115] Both of these include many reliefs as well as figures in the round; Borobudur has 2,672 relief panels, 504 Buddha statues, many semi-concealed in openwork stupas, and many large guardian figures.

In Thailand and Laos, sculpture was mainly of Buddha images, often gilded, both large for temples and monasteries, and small figurines for private homes. Traditional sculpture in Myanmar emerged before the Bagan period. As elsewhere in the region, most of the wood sculptures of the Bagan and Ava periods have been lost.

Traditional Anitist sculptures from the Philippines are dominated by Anitist designs mirroring the medium used and the culture involved, while being highlighted by the environments where such sculptures are usually placed on. Christian and Islamic sculptures from the Philippines have different motifs compared to other Christian and Islamic sculptures elsewhere. In later periods Chinese influence predominated in Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia, and more wooden sculpture survives from across the region.

Islam

Ivory with traces of paint, 11th–12th century, Egypt

arabesque decoration in relief or openwork, based on vegetable motifs, but tending to geometrical abstract forms. In the very early Mshatta Facade (740s), now mostly in Berlin, there are animals within the dense arabesques in high relief, and figures of animals and men in mostly low relief are found in conjunction with decoration on many later pieces in various materials, including metalwork, ivory and ceramics.[116]

Figures of animals in the round were often acceptable for works used in private contexts if the object was clearly practical, so medieval Islamic art contains many metal animals that are

Islamic Spain, Persia and India often leading relaxation, and is typically highest in courtly contexts.[117]

  • The Mshatta Facade, from a palace near Damascus, 740s
    The Mshatta Facade, from a palace near Damascus, 740s
  • The Pisa Griffin, 107 cm high, probably 11th century
    The Pisa Griffin, 107 cm high, probably 11th century
  • Part of a 15th-century ceramic panel from Samarkand with white calligraphy on a blue arabesque background.
    Part of a 15th-century ceramic panel from
    arabesque
    background.
  • Mughal dagger with hilt in jade, gold, rubies and emeralds. Blade of damascened steel inlaid with gold.
    damascened
    steel inlaid with gold.

Africa

Mask from Gabon
Two Chiwara c. late 19th early 20th centuries, Art Institute of Chicago. Female (left) and male Vertical styles

Historically, with the exception of some monumental Egyptian sculpture, most African sculpture was created in wood and other organic materials that have not survived from earlier than a few centuries ago; older pottery figures are found from a number of areas.

Congo rivers" in West Africa.[118] Direct images of deities are relatively infrequent, but masks in particular are or were often made for religious ceremonies; today many are made for tourists as "airport art".[119] African masks were an influence on European Modernist
art, which was inspired by their lack of concern for naturalistic depiction.

The

Ife in terracotta and metal from the 12th–14th centuries. Akan goldweights are a form of small metal sculptures produced over the period 1400–1900, some apparently representing proverbs and so with a narrative element rare in African sculpture, and royal regalia included impressive gold sculptured elements.[120]

Many West African figures are used in religious rituals and are often coated with materials placed on them for ceremonial offerings. The Mande-speaking peoples of the same region make pieces of wood with broad, flat surfaces and arms and legs are shaped like cylinders. In Central Africa, however, the main distinguishing characteristics include heart-shaped faces that are curved inward and display patterns of circles and dots.

Populations in the African Great Lakes are not known for their sculpture.[118] However, one style from the region is pole sculptures, carved in human shapes and decorated with geometric forms, while the tops are carved with figures of animals, people, and various objects. These poles are, then, placed next to graves and are associated with death and the ancestral world. The culture known from Great Zimbabwe left more impressive buildings than sculpture but the eight soapstone Zimbabwe Birds appear to have had a special significance and were mounted on monoliths. Modern Zimbabwean sculptors in soapstone have achieved considerable international success. Southern Africa's oldest known clay figures date from 400 to 600 CE and have cylindrical heads with a mixture of human and animal features.

Ethiopia and Eritrea

Further information: Ethiopian art and Lalibela Cross

The creation of sculptures in Ethiopia and

rock cut architecture at Lalibela containing intricate carvings, was built in the 10th–13th centuries as proven by archaeology.[124]

Sudan

Further information: Nubian pyramids

In

Meroitic period—ending around 350 CE (with its conquest by Ethiopia's Aksum).[125][126] Beyond pottery items, the Kerma culture also made furniture that contained sculptures, such as gold cattle hoofs as the legs of beds.[125] Sculpture during the Kingdom of Kush included full-sized statues (especially of kings and queens), smaller figurines (most commonly depicting royal servants), and reliefs in stone, which were influenced by the contemporary ancient Egyptian sculptural tradition.[127][128]

The Americas

See also:
Visual arts by indigenous peoples of the Americas, Pre-Columbian art, Northwest Coast art, and Inuit art

Sculpture in present-day

Aztec
cultures. In the Andean region, sculptures were typically small, but often show superb skill.

Pre-Columbian

North America

St. James panel, from reredos in Cristo Rey Church, Santa Fe, New Mexico
, c. 1760
mixed-media
sculpture modeled c. 1879–80, Bronze, partly tinted, with cotton

In

totem poles, masks, utensils, War canoes and a variety of other uses, with distinct variation between different cultures and regions. The most developed styles are those of the Pacific Northwest Coast, where a group of elaborate and highly stylized formal styles developed forming the basis of a tradition that continues today. In addition to the famous totem poles, painted and carved house fronts were complemented by carved posts inside and out, as well as mortuary figures and other items. Among the Inuit of the far north, traditional carving styles in ivory and soapstone are still continued.[130]

The arrival of European Catholic culture readily adapted local skills to the prevailing

Skookumchuck Hot Springs, British Columbia
.

The history of

Minimalist
sculpture replaced the figure in public settings and architects almost completely stopped using sculpture in or on their designs. Modern sculptors (21st century) use both classical and abstract inspired designs. Beginning in the 1980s, there was a swing back toward figurative public sculpture; by 2000, many of the new public pieces in the United States were figurative in design.

Moving toward modern art

19th–early 20th century, early Modernism and continuing realism

Modern classicism contrasted in many ways with the classical sculpture of the 19th century which was characterized by commitments to naturalism (

Lord Leighton
). Several different directions in the classical tradition were taken as the century turned, but the study of the live model and the post-Renaissance tradition was still fundamental to them.
Impressionist, as are his students including Camille Claudel, and Hugo Rheinhold
, attempting to model of a fleeting moment of ordinary life. Modern classicism showed a lesser interest in naturalism and a greater interest in formal stylization. Greater attention was paid to the rhythms of volumes and spaces—as well as greater attention to the contrasting qualities of surface (open, closed, planar, broken etc.) while less attention was paid to story-telling and convincing details of anatomy or costume. Greater attention was given to psychological effect than to physical realism, and influences from earlier styles worldwide were used.

Early masters of modern classicism included:

Soviet Russia, who co-opted the work of earlier artists such as Kolbe and Wilhelm Lehmbruck in Germany[134] and Matveyev in Russia. Over the 70 years of the USSR, new generations of sculptors were trained and chosen within their system, and a distinct style, socialist realism
, developed, that returned to the 19th century's emphasis on melodrama and naturalism.

Classical training was rooted out of art education in Western Europe (and the Americas) by 1970 and the classical variants of the 20th century were marginalized in the history of modernism. But classicism continued as the foundation of art education in the Soviet academies until 1990, providing a foundation for expressive figurative art throughout eastern Europe and parts of the Middle East. By 2000, the European classical tradition retains a wide appeal to the public but awaits an educational tradition to revive its contemporary development.

Some of the modern classical became either more decorative/art deco (Paul Manship, Jose de Creeft, Carl Milles) or more abstractly stylized or more expressive (and Gothic) (Anton Hanak, Wilhelm Lehmbruck, Ernst Barlach, Arturo Martini)—or turned more to the Renaissance (Giacomo Manzù, Venanzo Crocetti) or stayed the same (Charles Despiau, Marcel Gimond).

Modernism

Main article: Modern sculpture
Gaston Lachaise, Floating Figure 1927, bronze, no. 5 from an edition of 7, National Gallery of Australia
Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge
David Smith, CUBI VI, (1963), Israel Museum, Jerusalem

Pop-Art, Minimalism, Land art, and Installation art
among others.

In the beginning of the 20th century,

coulage. In later years Picasso became a prolific potter, leading, with interest in historic pottery from around the world, to a revival of ceramic art, with figures such as George E. Ohr and subsequently Peter Voulkos, Kenneth Price, and Robert Arneson. Marcel Duchamp originated the use of the "found object" (French: objet trouvé) or readymade with pieces such as Fountain
(1917).

Similarly, the work of Constantin Brâncuși at the beginning of the century paved the way for later abstract sculpture. In revolt against the naturalism of Rodin and his late-19th-century contemporaries, Brâncuși distilled subjects down to their essences as illustrated by the elegantly refined forms of his Bird in Space series (1924).[135]

Brâncuși's impact, with his vocabulary of reduction and abstraction, is seen throughout the 1930s and 1940s, and exemplified by artists such as

Frederick Kiesler who were pioneers of Kinetic art
.

Modernist sculptors largely missed out on the huge boom in public art resulting from the demand for war memorials for the two World Wars, but from the 1950s the public and commissioning bodies became more comfortable with Modernist sculpture and large public commissions both abstract and figurative became common. Picasso was commissioned to make a maquette for a huge 50-foot (15 m)-high public sculpture, the so-called Chicago Picasso (1967). His design was ambiguous and somewhat controversial, and what the figure represents is not clear; it could be a bird, a horse, a woman or a totally abstract shape.

During the late 1950s and the 1960s abstract sculptors began experimenting with a wide array of new materials and different approaches to creating their work. Surrealist imagery, anthropomorphic abstraction, new materials and combinations of new energy sources and varied surfaces and objects became characteristic of much new modernist sculpture. Collaborative projects with landscape designers, architects, and landscape architects expanded the outdoor site and contextual integration. Artists such as Isamu Noguchi, David Smith, Alexander Calder, Jean Tinguely, Richard Lippold, George Rickey, Louise Bourgeois, Philip Pavia and Louise Nevelson came to characterize the look of modern sculpture.

By the 1960s

John Chamberlain, and environmental installation scale works by Mark di Suvero. Other Minimalists include Tony Smith, Donald Judd, Robert Morris, Anne Truitt, Giacomo Benevelli, Arnaldo Pomodoro, Richard Serra, Dan Flavin, Carl Andre, and John Safer who added motion and monumentality to the theme of purity of line.[137]

During the 1960s and 1970s figurative sculpture by modernist artists in stylized forms was made by artists such as Leonard Baskin, Ernest Trova, George Segal, Marisol Escobar, Paul Thek, Robert Graham in a classic articulated style, and Fernando Botero bringing his painting's 'oversized figures' into monumental sculptures.

Gallery of modernist sculpture

Contemporary movements

Christo and Jeanne-Claude, Umbrellas 1991, Japan[138]
Device to Root Out Evil (1997) sculpture by Dennis Oppenheim at
Palma de Mallorca, Plaça de la Porta de Santa Catalina

Postminimalist
sculpture.

Also during the 1960s and 1970s artists as diverse as

John DeAndrea explored abstraction, imagery and figuration through video art, environment, light sculpture, and installation art
in new ways.

Conceptual art is art in which the concept(s) or idea(s) involved in the work take precedence over traditional aesthetic and material concerns. Works include One and Three Chairs, 1965, is by Joseph Kosuth, and An Oak Tree by Michael Craig-Martin, and those of Joseph Beuys, James Turrell and Jacek Tylicki.

Minimalism

Postminimalism

Contemporary genres

Spiral Jetty by Robert Smithson, in 2005

Some modern sculpture forms are now practiced outdoors, as

Kid Robot, designed by Michael Lau, or hand-made by Michael Leavitt (artist).[141]

Conservation

Visible damage due to acid rain on a sculpture

Sculptures are sensitive to environmental conditions such as

ultraviolet light. Acid rain can also cause damage to certain building materials and historical monuments. This results when sulfuric acid in the rain chemically reacts with the calcium compounds in the stones (limestone, sandstone, marble and granite) to create gypsum
, which then flakes off. Severe air pollution also causes damage to historical monuments.

At any time many contemporary sculptures have usually been on display in public places; theft was not a problem as pieces were instantly recognisable. In the early 21st century the value of metal rose to such an extent that theft of massive bronze sculpture for the value of the metal became a problem; sculpture worth millions being stolen and melted down for the relatively low value of the metal, a tiny fraction of the value of the artwork.[142]

Form

Cultural

Method

Application

See also

Notes

  1. ^ en.museicapitolini.org Archived 2017-09-03 at the Wayback Machine (in Italian).
  2. ^ a b "Gods in Color: Painted Sculpture of Classical Antiquity" September 2007 to January 2008, The Arthur M. Sackler Museum Archived January 4, 2009, at the Wayback Machine
  3. ^
    ISBN 978-0-521-28084-6
  4. ^ NGA, Washington Archived 2013-02-15 at the Wayback Machine feature on exhibition.
  5. Ptolemies began the Hellenistic tradition of ruler-portraits on coins, and the Romans began to show dead politicians in the 1st century BCE, with Julius Caesar
    the first living figure to be portrayed; under the emperors portraits of the Imperial family became standard. See Burnett, 34–35; Howgego, 63–70.
  6. ^ "Article by Morris Cox". Archived from the original on August 28, 2008. Retrieved October 30, 2008.
  7. ^ Part of the Gods in Color exhibition. Harvard exhibition Archived 2014-10-06 at the Wayback Machine
  8. ^ Cook, 147; he notes that ancient Greek copyists seem to have used many fewer points than some later ones, and copies often vary considerably in the composition as well as the finish.
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  34. ^ Frankfort, 71–73.
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  36. ^ Frankfort, 141–93.
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  38. ^ Smith, 12–13 and note 17.
  39. ^ Smith, 21–24.
  40. ^ Smith, 170–78, 192–94.
  41. ^ Smith, 102–03, 133–34.
  42. ^ Smith, 4–5, 208–09.
  43. ^ Smith, 89–90.
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  51. ^ Cook, 131–41.
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  55. ^ Cook, 155–58.
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  63. ^ Henig, Chapter 8.
  64. ^ Strong, 171–76, 211–14.
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  68. ^ Dodwell, Chapter 2.
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  70. ^ Calkins, 107–14.
  71. ^ Calkins, 115–32.
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  81. ^ Olson, 114–18, 149–50.
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  83. ^ Olson, 103–10, 131–32.
  84. ^ Olson, Chapter 8, 179–81.
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  86. ^ Olson, 183–87.
  87. ^ Olson, 182–83.
  88. ^ Olson, 194–202.
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  92. ^ Honour and Fleming, 460–67.
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  98. ^ Rawson, 163–65
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  113. ^ Harle, 301–10, 325–27
  114. ^ Harle, 276–84.
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References

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Sculpture.
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Look up sculpture in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.
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