Famous Art Sculptures
It seems that art sculptures have been around for as long as people have inhabited the earth. We appear to have an urge to express ourselves in this way. From the monoliths of Stonehenge to the Heads on Easter Island, this habit knows no bounds of culture or civilization. It’s not that hard to see why. Who hasn’t felt the urge to whittle away at a piece of wood on a lazy summer afternoon? There are no rules for the size of the sculpture or the material used to create it. Sculptures vary in size from 7-inch figurines to the 72ft Easter Island heads and the 66ft tall sphinx with Michelangelo’s 17 foot tall David and many others in between. There are, of course, examples both smaller and larger than these. The materials used can be anything at hand but commonly include bedrock, marble, clay, or wood.
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Sometimes the sculptures had religious significance or were created to commemorate a historical event such as success in war. Still. In many cases, the meaning and purpose of the statues remain a mystery. Perhaps they were simply a way to immortalize beauty as seen by the artist.
Ancient and Renaissance Sculptures
Using the term ‘ancient’ rather loosely, we include the lifesized terracotta army from 220BCE in China and the Sphinx of Giza in Egypt, 2494BCE. There are also many examples from ancient Rome For instance, Romulus and Remus suckling on the wolf and the equestrian statue of Marcus Aurelius, the last of the five good emperors of Rome and symbol of the golden age of the Roman Empire. Also Greece, with many examples of great art sculptures like Venus de Milo, famous for her lack of arms and the discus thrower, iconic image of the Olympic games.
Some of the following are not viewed as examples of Renaissance art, but they are from around the same period, so they are included here. If we examine the more famous examples, we can see the heads on Easter Island, dating back to 1250 - 1500 BCE. There are various statues of Buddha from around the second to third century AD.
The statues we’re more likely to be familiar with date from the Renaissance in Europe. Michelangelo’s David comes to mind as a prime example but is far from the only one.
Modern Sculptures
While the materials used have always varied, this becomes more noticeable with modern sculptures, where, apart from bronze casts of clay sculptures, everything from bicycle wheels to wooden boxes has been used. From a 7-inch figurine of Millenial Gaia by Oberon Zell to the 20m tall Angel of the North designed by Anthony Gormley in Gateshead, England, the size of modern sculptures still varies.
Rodin’s The Thinker, cast in bronze at 73 inches high, deserves mention here.