Overview

Sculpture is art you can bump into. It occupies real space. It engages with gravity, light, and texture in a way painting cannot.

Core Idea

The core idea is Form. It’s about mass and volume.

Formal Definition

Three-dimensional art created by shaping or combining hard or plastic material, sound, or text and or light, commonly stone (either rock or marble), clay, metal, glass, or wood.

Intuition

  • Subtractive vs. Additive:
    • Subtractive (Carving): Starting with a block of stone and taking away everything that isn’t the statue. (Michelangelo).
    • Additive (Modeling): Starting with nothing and adding clay or wax. (Rodin).
  • The Tactile: You want to touch it. It appeals to our sense of touch even if we can’t touch it.

Examples

  • David (Michelangelo): The pinnacle of marble carving.
  • The Thinker (Rodin): Bronze casting.
  • Readymades (Duchamp): Taking a urinal and calling it art. Redefining sculpture as “selection.”

Common Misconceptions

  • Misconception: It has to be a statue of a person.
    • Correction: Modern sculpture can be abstract, kinetic (moving), or an installation (a whole room).
  • Misconception: Bronze statues are carved.
    • Correction: They are cast. You make a mold, pour in molten metal.

Applications

  • Monuments: Public memory.
  • Industrial Design: Designing cars and phones (sculpting with function).

Criticism and Limitations

  • Permanence: Stone lasts forever, but it’s hard to move.

Further Reading

  • The Sculptural Idea by James J. Kelly