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The Thinker, by Auguste Rodin c. 1902, Bronze, Copenhagen, Denmark

Gommateshwara statue in India, the largest ancient monolithic statue in the world.

Leshan Giant Buddha, c. 803, a stone statue carved out of a mountain face in Leshan, China

A statue is a free-standing sculpture in which the realistic, full-length figures of persons or animals or non-representational forms are carved in durable material (like wood, metal, or stone) and placed on a pedestal in a public place as public art to serve as an impressive and commanding material support for contemplation of persons, events, concepts or other realities of religious, historical, moral, or spiritual import..^[1] Some statues gain fame independent of the person or concept they represent, as with the Statue of Liberty, which now represents the great era of immigration in the late 19th and early 20th centuries when its appearance on the horizon to ships indicated that passengers had at last put the Old World behind them and would soon disembark in a land of unlimited opportunity. Typical statues are life-sized or close to life-size; a sculpture that represents persons or animals in full figure but that is small enough to lift and carry is a statuette or figurine, while one more than twice life-size is a colossal statue.^[2]

Statues have been produced in many cultures from prehistory to the present; the oldest known statue dating to about 30,000 years ago. The world's tallest statue, Spring Temple Buddha, is 128 metres (420 ft), and is located in Lushan County, Henan, China.

Color

Ancient statues often survive showing the bare surface of the material of which they are made. For example, many people associate Greek classical art with white marble sculpture, but there is evidence that many statues were painted in bright colors.^[3] Most of the color has weathered off over time; small remnants were removed during cleaning; in some cases small traces remained which could be identified.^[3] A travelling exhibition of 20 coloured replicas of Greek and Roman works, alongside 35 original statues and reliefs, was held in Europe and the United States in 2008: Gods in Color: Painted Sculpture of Classical Antiquity.^[4] Details such as whether the paint was applied in one or two coats, how finely the pigments were ground, or exactly which binding medium would have been used in each case—all elements that would affect the appearance of a finished piece—are not known. Richter goes so far as to say of classical Greek sculpture, "`All stone sculpture, whether limestone or marble, was painted, either wholly or in part." ^[5]

Medieval statues were also usually painted, with some still retaining their original pigments. The coloring of statues ceased during the Renaissance, as excavated classical sculptures, which had lost their coloring, became regarded as the best models.

Christ the Redeemer, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, by Paul Landowski and Gheorghe Leonida 1931

Easter Island moai statues

Historical periods

Antiquity

The Löwenmensch figurine from the Swabian Alps in Germany is the oldest known statue in the world, and dates to 30,000-40,000 years ago.^[6][7][8] The Venus of Hohle Fels, from the same area, is somewhat later.^[9] Throughout history, statues have been associated with cult images in many religious traditions, from Ancient Egypt, Ancient India, Ancient Greece, and Ancient Rome to the present.

Egyptian statues showing kings as sphinxes have existed since the Old Kingdom, the oldest being for Djedefre (c. 2500 BC).^[10] The oldest statue of a striding pharaoh dates from the reign of Senwosret I (c. 1950 BC) and is the Egyptian Museum, Cairo.^[11] The Middle Kingdom of Egypt (starting around 2000 BC) witnessed the growth of block statues which then became the most popular form until the Ptolemaic period (c. 300 BC).^[12]

The oldest statue of a deity in Rome was the bronze statue of Ceres in 485 BC.^[13][14] The oldest statue in Rome is now the statue of Diana on the Aventine.^[15]

The wonders of the world include several statues from antiquity, with the Colossus of Rhodes and the Statue of Zeus at Olympia among the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World.

Middle Ages

While Byzantine art flourished in various forms, sculpture and statue making witnessed a general decline; although statues of emperors continued to appear.^[16] An example was the statue of Justinian (6th century) which stood in the square across from the Hagia Sophia until the fall of Constantinople in the 15th century.^[16] Part of the decline in statue making in the Byzantine period can be attributed to the mistrust the Church placed in the art form, given that it viewed sculpture in general as a method for making and worshiping idols.^[16] While making statues was not subject to a general ban, it was hardly encouraged in this period.^[16] Justinian was one of the last Emperors to have a full-size statue made, and secular statues of any size became virtually non-existent after iconoclasm; and the artistic skill for making statues was lost in the process.

Modern Era

Starting with the work of Maillol around 1900, the human figures embodied in statues began to move away from the various schools of realism that been followed for thousands of years. The Futurist and Cubist schools took this metamorphism even further until statues, often still nominally representing humans, had lost all but the most rudimentary relationship to the human form. By the 1920s and 1930s statues began to appear that were completely abstract in design and execution.^[17]

The notion that the position of the hooves of horses in equestrian statues indicated the rider's cause of death has been disproved.^[18][19]

Gallery

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  Löwenmensch figurine, from Hohlenstein-Stadel, Germany, now in Ulmer Museum, Ulm, Germany, the oldest known zoomorphic statuette, Aurignacian era, 40,000 BC-30,000 BC
  

  
  

  
  


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  Venus of Dolní Věstonice, ceramic figurine, 29,000 BC-25,000 BC
  

  
  

  
  


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  Venus of Willendorf, one of the oldest known Statuettes, Upper Paleolithic, 24,000 BC-22,000 BC
  

  
  

  
  


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  Great Sphinx of Giza, c. 2558–2532 BC, the largest monolithic statue in the world, standing 73.5 metres (241 ft) long, 6 metres (20 ft) wide, and 20.22 m (66.34 ft) high. Giza, Egypt.
  

  
  

  
  


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  The Charioteer of Delphi, 474 BC, Delphi Archaeological Museum, Greece
  

  
  

  
  


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  Hermes and the Infant Dionysus by Praxiteles, 4th century BC, Archaeological Museum of Olympia, Greece
  

  
  

  
  


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  Venus de Milo, c. 130 - 100 BC, Greek, the Louvre
  

  
  

  
  


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  Laocoön and his Sons, Greek, (Late Hellenistic), c. 160 BC and 20 BC, White marble, Vatican Museum
  

  
  

  
  


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  Nara Daibutsu, c. 752, Nara, Japan
  

  
  

  
  


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  Gommateshvara Bahubali, c. 978-993 AD, 157 feet high
  

  
  

  
  


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  Moai of Easter Island facing inland, Ahu Tongariki, c. 1250 - 1500, restored by Chilean archaeologist Claudio Cristino in the 1990s
  

  
  

  
  


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  The Great Buddha of Kamakura, c. 1252, Japan
  

  
  

  
  


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  Michelangelo's David, 1504, The Accademia Gallery, Florence, Italy
  

  
  

  
  


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  Auguste Rodin, The Burghers of Calais (1884–c. 1889) in Victoria Tower Gardens, London, England.
  

  
  

  
  


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  The Statue of Liberty, (formally Liberty Enlightening the World) New York Harbor, United States, by Frédéric Auguste Bartholdi c.1886
  

  
  

  
  


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  Henry Bain Smith's bronze of Robert Burns, 1892, above Union Terrace Gardens, Aberdeen, Scotland
  

  
  

  
  


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  Camille Claudel, The Waltz, 1889-1905
  

  
  

  
  


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  The Little Mermaid, Copenhagen, by Edvard Eriksen 1913
  

  
  

  
  


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  Statue of Dr. Jose Rizal. at the Luneta Park, Philippines c.1908
  

  
  

  
  


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  Thomas Brock, John Everett Millais, at Tate Britain 1905
  

  
  

  
  


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  U.S. Marine Corps War Memorial, located in Arlington, Virginia, by Felix de Weldon 1954
  

  
  

  
  


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  A closeup of the replica statue of Roman Emperor, Marcus Aurelius, 1981, The original c. 200 AD is in the nearby Capitoline Museum, Rome
  

  
  

  
  


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  Spring Temple Buddha, the world's tallest statue, overall 128 m (420 ft) in height, completed 2002, China.
  

  
  

  
  


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  Kailashnath Mahadev Statue, Bhaktapur, Nepal. The world's tallest Statue of Lord Shiva, 144 feet (44 m), 2003–Present.
  

  
  

  
  


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  Lord Murugan Statue, Batu Caves, Malaysia, 140 feet (42.7 m).
  

  
  

  
  


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  Balance of Nature statue near VUDA Park, Visakhapatnam
  

  
  

  
  


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  Aristotle in the Aristotlepark of Stagira
  

  
  

  
  

See also

References

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Statues.

• UK Public Monument and Sculpture Association