There are multiple types of sculpture.
Sculpture is an artistic discipline that consists of creating figures from actions such as sculpting or carving different materials. The term, coming from the Latin word sculptūra , is also used to name the work resulting from this work.
The individual who makes sculptures is called a sculptor . Its task is to create volumes that allow it to represent an image or transmit an idea. There are sculptures made of stone, clay, wood, bronze, gold and other materials.
Sculptures can have a magical or ritual purpose. In these cases, the work goes beyond aesthetics , since various meanings are attributed to it. Currently, in any case, sculpture is usually considered an artistic work, without any other symbolic load.
Origins of sculpture
The first sculptures were made in Prehistory , hundreds of thousands of years ago. At that time they were produced with stones or bones. Over time man began to use other materials.
If we look specifically at the European continent, the oldest manifestations of sculpture are found in the Lower Paleolithic, that is, in the first period of the first stage of the Stone Age, also called the Paleolithic period. In that remote time, humans used a mineral called flint , which they cut using percussion against another rock. Later, he began to use engraving, as well as relief, a technique he practiced on both stone and bone of animal origin.
Paleolithic Venus
Prehistoric sculpture is often associated with exuberant human figures that were created around thirty thousand years ago. These are the famous Paleolithic Venuses , a series of female statues that supposedly exalted fertility from an artistic point of view. Two of the most important exponents of that group are the Venus of Lespugue and the Venus of Willendorf .
Already in the Upper Paleolithic, the last of the Paleolithic periods, there were many engraved objects or carvings that at first were relatively primitive, since they went from having decorations of little complexity to representations of animals adapted to the surface of the bone. Another very common material at that time was clay; In the Near East, India, China and Egypt, where some of the oldest examples of sculpture come from, there were pottery kilns four millennia before Christ.
Michelangelo's David is one of the most famous sculptures in the world.
Metal in sculpture
Without a doubt, sculpture took a leap when humans understood how to work metal . First of all, this advance took place with bronze, and later techniques for manipulating iron appeared, thanks to which more effective tools emerged, as well as materials for the works themselves.
Building a work in clay and then casting it in bronze is a process that dates back to Ancient Greece and the Roman Empire, but is still used today.
The Terracotta Warriors and the Moais
Due to their characteristics, many sculptures have remained in history and are famous worldwide. The Terracotta Warriors , for example, are more than 8,000 sculptures that were created about two hundred years BC and buried next to the Chinese emperor Qin Shi Huang . Each of these figures, developed in life size, has its own features.
On Easter Island , on the other hand, there are moais : immense sculptures that were carved over several centuries by the aborigines. There are moais that weigh more than ten tons.
David, an iconic sculpture
At the beginning of the 16th century , Michelangelo created his most popular sculpture: David , showing the biblical king before fighting Goliath .
This figure, found in the Italian city of Florence, measures more than five meters and is a Renaissance jewel.