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Understanding Sculpture

By Pat Knepley

Sculpture is the creation of a three-dimensional art form, usually of a solid material, in that
the sculpture takes up space. Most people think of sculpture as a statue of a personand
indeed, that is sculpture, but there are many more types of sculpture! An understanding of
some basics about sculpture can help a student appreciate his next trip to an art museum or
even the town square, as sculptures are common as forms of public art.

There are two basic types of sculpture: freestanding and relief. A relief sculpture is a form
that projects from a background to which the form remains attached. The most common
examples of relief sculpture are coins. Each side of a coin has a low-relief sculpture of the
head of a Founding Father or some other U.S. iconography. Low relief means that the
carving is very shallow so the image does not protrude too far from the background.

High-relief sculpture, called a frieze can often be seen on the tops of buildings or around an
ancient sarcophagus. When the United States Supreme Court building in Washington, D.C.
was being planned, the architect hired a sculptor (an artist who specializes in sculpture) to
design the many friezes for the building, and there is a lot of meaning in these high-relief
sculptures! Symbols of justice and images of many great leaders in the history of law adorn
these reliefs. So, the next time you go into an important building, look around for some
relief sculpture that can give you some insight into the building or the architect who
designed it.

Freestanding sculpture is a piece that can be viewed from all around, 360 degrees, and is
not attached to a building or other flat surface. There are many types of freestanding
sculpture: statues, busts, mobiles, stabiles, assemblage piecesand lots of materials can be
used to create a sculpture. The more traditional materials are marble, wood, stone, clay,
and bronze. More modern materials used in sculpture can be practically anything. There is
even a sculpture made entirely of human hair!

A statue is a human figure, whether alone or with an animal (like on horseback), that
commemorates a famous event or person. The sculptor has to have great skill, as sculpting
a statue is like painting a portraityou must capture likeness. One of the great portrait
sculptors of eighteenth-century France was Jean Antoine Houdon, who made a statue of
U.S. President George Washington that stands in the Virginia State Capitol today.
Washington is dressed in his Generals uniform, and those who knew Washington felt it was
the closest likeness they had seen.
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In order to achieve success, Houdon came over to the
United States and spent two weeks with Washington at his home in Mount Vernon, making
terra cotta clay busts of Washingtons head and even taking all of his bodily measurements.
The sculpture itself was carved out of marble back in France.

Sculpture can be made by a subtractive process, an additive process, or assembly.

Houdons statue of Washington was created with a subtractive process; Houdon started with
a giant block of solid marble and had to chisel and carve away the marble to form the
figure. Most ancient sculpture was formed from stone or marble and took many years to
complete. Sculptors had to be strongand careful! One slip and a piece could be ruined.

Perhaps you have seen chainsaw artists who use a chainsaw to carve a sculpture from a
wood log. This is also a subtractive process, and very dangerous!

An additive process is one in which the sculptor adds material to build the sculpture. A
perfect example is clay. The famous Terra Cotta soldiers found in a massive archeological
dig in China are almost life-sized figures of men escorting their king to the afterlife. These
clay soldiers were buried in 210 B.C. with the first Emperor of China, Qi Shi Huang.
Estimates are that there are more than 8,000 terra cotta soldiers of varying size, 130
sculpted chariots, and 520 horses.
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Not all clay sculptures stay in the form of clay, which can be fragile and not very durable.
The French sculptor August Rodin would sculpt a figure in clay, pushing and molding small
lumps of clay into each other to result in a powerful figure of enormous size. Rodin would
then take the artwork to a foundry, where the clay piece would be pressed into a special
sand mixture to make a perfect mold, one half at a time. Into this sand mold, molten
bronze would be poured to create a perfect replica but in a much more durable material
metal. Also, since there was a mold of the sculpture, Rodin could make many copies. The
sand method of casting, popular in nineteenth-century France, is no longer used.

The Lost Wax method of casting is used to cast everything from school rings to the Oscar
statues! Once an original is made, then a rubber mold is made. The rubber mold is then
filled with liquid wax and swished around to form a thin wax coating (the center is hollow).
Then, another mold is made from a fireproof material such as clay, with a small opening to
the wax model. Into this opening, the molten metal (gold, silver, bronze, brass) is poured.
The heat of the molten metal will melt and burn up the wax, but the metal then takes the
shape of the sculpture.
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The same mold can be used for many castings of the same image. That is why you will see
the original famous Rodin sculpture of The Thinker at the Rodin Museum in Paris, France,
as well as a cast of the sculpture at the Rodin Museum in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The
University of Louisville in Louisville, Kentucky, boasts of having the first cast of the
original sculpture at its Grawemeyer Hall on the University of Louisville Belknap Campus.
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Working with an additive sculptural process like clay allows the artist to correct mistakes, so
it is much more flexible than a subtractive process. If while working in clay you dont like
the nose, you simply take it off and try again! Once the clay hardens or is fired in a kiln, the
material is as hard as stone and cannot be changed.

Another way to make a sculpture is through assembly. This is when several parts or
materials are assembled or constructed to make a three-dimensional piece; this category
offers a host of possibilities. One sub-category is a mobile, which is a type of moving
sculpture. The most famous mobile artist is American Alexander Calder, who made the first
mobile from wire and cut sheet metal in the 1930s. Although most mobiles are large and
constructed of metal, these works are delicately balanced to move when just the slightest
wisp of air passes by. When positioned in front of a mobile, the view of the sculpture
changes, depending on where you stand and what is happening in the air around it, thus
making it a dynamic experience. Calder also constructed very large metal sculptures that
were stable and fixed.

Some assembly pieces of sculpture are made from ordinary objects seen in a new way. In
1942, the Spanish artist Pablo Picasso made a famous sculpture titled Head of a Bull from a
bicycle saddle and handlebars. Picasso did not manufacture the bicycle seat or even the
handlebars; he simply took objects he found around him and manipulated them in a new
way. This idea of found object sculpture is a great way to get started in trying your hand
at sculpture. Grab a few things you find in the garage, a scrap art bin, or the recycle bin,
and with some tape or glue and a little imagination you can create a sculpture!


Pat has been drawing and painting since she was able to hold a crayon. Pat has a degree in
art education, a teaching credential, and has taught art in Pennsylvania and California. In
addition to being the master artist for the See the Light ART CLASS and ART PROJECTS DVD
series, Pat teaches art and chorus at a charter elementary school in the Los Angeles area.
Pat lives in a windy part of southern California with her husband and two almost grown
sons.

Endnotes:
1. www.history.org/foundation/journal/autumn03/houdon.cfm
2. www.travelchinaguide.com/attraction/shaanxi/xian/terra_cotta_army
3. www.canequest.com/lost-wax.asp
4. A list of The Thinker sculptures found around the world is available here:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Thinker_sculptures.


Copyright 2012, used with permission. All rights reserved by author. Originally appeared in
the September 2012 issue of The Old Schoolhouse Magazine, the family education
magazine. Read the magazine free at www.TOSMagazine.com or read it on the go and
download the free apps at www.TOSApps.com to read the magazine on your mobile devices.

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