SCULPTURE
From Ancient Egypt to Modern Europe
"The message of the work of art had to be clear: everyone from scribes to peasants had to understand at first glance that the great image of the pharaoh was a sign of his limitless power." (pg. 10, Romei, 1995) Most art work was done for the pharaoh or his wealthy government officials. The large works of sculpture were often displayed at temples, which the pharaoh would build to their favorite deity. Sculptures were stiff, formal, and solemn. The Egyptians did not strive for realistic depiction, but instead wanted to present a powerful image. Egyptians used the size of their sculptures to show the social order. The pharaoh was larger then life size, scribes and court officials were life size, and workers and peasants always shown working. Many of the smaller statues were constructed out of slate which allowed them to survive over time, while the enormity of other sculptures helped them to survive.
There are three main periods of Greek Sculpture; Archaic, Classical and Hellenistic. The Greeks were blessed with a large supply of marble, which was what they used most in their sculptures. Bronze was also used in their artistic work of humans. Many of the original sculptures were damaged or destroyed. Yet, many still survived because the Romans make copies or duplications of the original works.
The Archaic period was the earliest period in Greek Sculpture which started around 600 B.C. and lasted until 480 B.C. These works have a stiff and ridged appearance similar to that of the Egyptian sculpture.
The second period, the Classical period, was
between the Archaic and Hellenistic times. The Classical period shows a very
large shift from the stiff Archaic to a more realistic and sometimes idealistic
portrayal of the human figure. Females, after the 5th century B.C., were
depicted nude, often with flowing robes. The robes gave the sculpture the idea
of movement and realism in an effort by the artist to show humans more
realistically.
The Discus Thrower (r).
Three Goddesses from the Parthenon (l)
The third period, the Hellenistic period, started a little before 300 B.C.
To the average person, it is more difficult to see the distinctions between the
Classical and Hellenistic period. Both periods did the majority of their
sculpture as nudes. To the left is the famous Laocoon Group showing Laocoon and
his sons struggling against two serpents sent by Zeus to punish Laocoon for
revealing the secret of the Trojan Horse. This is in the Vatican Museum, Rome.
Another remarkable piece of Hellenistic art we will see is in the Pergamon
Museum in Berlin.
One of Berlin’s greatest puzzles is the Altar of Pergamon, an ancient Greek temple dating from 180-160BC dug up by German archaeologists in the 1880s. The altar is covered with a mammoth frieze depicting all the gods in battle against a horde of giants (with Athena pulling Alcyoneos by the hair and Zeus taking on three giants at once).
The frieze took over 20 years to reassemble from thousands of fragments uncovered in Pergamon in west Turkey. This museum in Mitte was built expressly to house the altar and several other huge monuments carted back to Germany in the same period (including a Roman-era market gate and the Ishtar Gate of Babylon).
The Greeks portrayed a young, vigorous, and athletic person in their works. These works idealized the individual and in a way, attempted to capture the idea of youth and strength in their design. The works reflect the commonly held views of youth, strength, and courage which were encouraged in the Greek City states.
A couple of interesting notes about the Greek sculpture. Greeks portrayed the gods in very similar fashion as they did the regular humans. There were no distinctions of size or body make up in their sculpture which would suggest that the gods where greater or more powerful then the humans. This is also similar in Greek stories, where the gods are shown to have very human characteristics, both good and bad.
Roman Sculpture
Roman sculpture gained momentum after the conquest of Greece circa 146 BC although many of the famous Roman Statues that we know today were actually inspired by the Greeks. In fact, many wealthy Romans commissioned copies of Greek Statues to decorate their villas and gardens. The Romans, however, did develop their own sense of style over time. Unlike Greek sculpture which portrayed people in their ideal form, Roman statues aimed for a more realistic view.
Consequently, the Romans most significant contribution to the art of sculpture was realistic portraiture, in which they recorded even the homeliest facial details. This style of realistic sculpture probably originated in the terra-cotta busts of ancestors which were displayed at the funerals of Roman aristocrats.
For the most part, Roman statues were used to
decorate public and private buildings and much of this sculpture was used to
honor the ruler, celebrate victories, or to promote the state and its
governance. Starting with
Caesar Augustus,
the first Roman Emperor, sculptors created idealized statues of the imperial
family. It is also very interesting to note
that while Roman statues survive in great numbers, few names of Roman sculptors
were recorded. For the most part, Roman statues were typically created to serve
the needs of their patrons rather than to express the artistic attitudes of
their sculptors.
A Roman Couple
Caesar Augustus
The art of the Romanesque period was characterized by an important revival of
monumental forms, notably sculpture and fresco painting, which developed in
close association with architectural decoration and exhibited a forceful and
often severely structural quality. At the same time an element of realism, which
parallels the first flowering of vernacular literature, came to the fore. It was
expressed in terms of a direct and naive observation of certain details drawn
from daily life and a heightened emphasis on emotion and fantasy. For many
aspects of its rich imagery Romanesque art depended on the heritage of antiquity
and of earlier medieval art, while the prestige of Byzantine art remained high
in Western eyes.
The pilgrimages and Crusades contributed to an unprecedented expansion of the
formal vocabulary through the development of closer contacts between regional
cultures and distant peoples.The first important monuments of Romanesque
sculpture were created in the last decade of the 11th cent. and the first
decades of the 12th cent. The primary source of artistic patronage was provided
by the monastic institutions, for whom sculptors executed large relief carvings
for the decoration of church portals and richly ornate capitals for cloisters.
Romanesque sculpture produced an art of extraordinary ornamental complexity,
ecstatic in expression, and abounding in seemingly endless combinations of
zoomorphic, vegetal, and abstract motifs.
In France themes portrayed on tympanums of such churches as Moissac, Vézelay, and Autun emphasized the awesome majesty of Christ as ruler and judge of the universe. They often depicted terrifying spectacles of hell. English sculpture showed a tendency toward geometric ornamentation. However, with the introduction in England of continental influences in the mid-12th cent. there also appeared gruesome renditions of the Last Judgment, e.g., at Lincoln Cathedral. In contrast with the demonic nature and animated quality of sculpture in France and in England, there was an assertion of more massive and ponderous figures in N Italy, with the narrative reliefs from Genesis designed by Wiligelmo in Modena and by Niccolò in Verona.
Devils Weighing Souls Christ in
Judgment
To
the left is a good example of Romanesque sculpture (Chartres Cathedral,
1140-1175) being used as decoration of a church portal. Christ sits in judgment
above and saints and apostles adorn the columns flanking the opening. The human
figures here are bound by the architecture, they are actually more columns than
human figures. In the renaissance to come, the figures will be freed from their
architectural confinement.
Because the Romanesque church was “God’s fortress on earth,” the sculptures were
often horrific and threatening, reminders of the hell fire that awaits the
sinner. The western entrances of these cathedrals therefore had scenes of the
Last Judgment and damnation while the doors on the east side, the end of the
church where the altar resided, were decorated with scenes of the resurrection.
Gothic Sculpture
In
the Gothic period, the cathedral decorative sculpture began to break out of the
confinement of the architecture and look more like a human figure. The figures
on the left are from Chartres also, but from a later period. Sculpture evolved
from an early style, characterized by stiff and elongated, almost Romanesque
figures, into the spatial and naturalistic style of the late 12th and early 13th
century. Ideas taken from the ancient Greek and Roman canon were incorporated
into the treatment of drapery, facial expression and pose.
Gothic sculpture was born on the wall, in the middle of the 12th century in Île-de-France, when Abbot Suger built the abbey at St. Denis (ca. 1140), considered the first Gothic building, and soon after the Chartres Cathedral (ca. 1145). Prior to this there had been no sculpture tradition in Ile-de-France—so sculptors were brought in from Burgundy, who created the revolutionary figures acting as columns in the Western (Royal) Portal of Chartres Cathedral (see image above)—it was an entirely new invention, and would provide the model for a generation of sculptors.
The French ideas spread. In Germany, from 1225 at the Cathedral in Bamberg onward, the impact can be found everywhere. The Bamberg Cathedral had the largest assemblage of 13th century sculpture, culminating in 1240 with the Bamberg Rider, the first equestrian statue in Western art since the 6th century. In England the sculpture was more confined to tombs and non-figurine decorations (which can in part be blamed on Cistercian iconoclasm). In Italy there was still a Classical influence, but Gothic made inroads in the sculptures of pulpits such as the Pisa Baptistery pulpit (1269) and the Siena pulpit.
Gothic sculpture evolved from the early stiff and elongated style, still partly
Romanesque, into a spatial and naturalistic feel in the late 12th and early 13th
century. Influences from surviving ancient Greek and Roman sculptures were
incorporated into the treatment of drapery, facial expression and pose. Dutch-Burgundian
sculptor
Claus Sluter
and the taste for naturalism signaled the beginning of the end of Gothic
sculpture, evolving into the classicistic Renaissance style by the end of the
15th century.
Renaissance Sculpture
When we talk about the Northern Renaissance, what we actually mean is "Renaissance happenings that occurred within Europe, but outside of Italy." Because the most innovative art was created in France, the Netherlands and Germany during this time, and because all of these places are north of Italy, the "Northern" tag has stuck.
What were the differences between the Northern and Italian Renaissances?
Geography aside, there were some significant differences between the Italian Renaissance and the Northern Renaissance. For one thing, the north held on to Gothic (or "Middle Ages") art and architecture with a tighter, longer grip than did Italy. (Architecture, in particular, remained Gothic until well into the 16th century.) This isn't to say that art wasn't changing in the north - in many instances it kept apace with Italian doings.
The Northern Renaissance artists, however, were scattered about and few in number initially (very unlike their Italian counterparts).
The north had fewer centers of free commerce than did Italy. Italy, as we saw, had numerous Duchies and Republics which gave rise to a wealthy merchant class that often spent considerable funds on art. This wasn't the case in the north. In fact, the only notable similarity between northern Europe and, say, a place like Florence, lay in the Duchy of Burgundy.
Burgundy, until 1477, encompassed a territory from present-day middle France northward (in an arc) to the sea, and included Flanders (in modern Belgium) and parts of the current Netherlands. It was the only individual entity standing between France and the enormous Holy Roman Empire. Its Dukes, during the last 100 years it existed, were given monikers of "the Good", "the Fearless" and "the Bold" (although apparently the last "Bold" Duke wasn't quite bold enough, as Burgundy was absorbed by both France and the Holy Roman Empire at the end of his reign...but, I digress...)
The Burgundian Dukes were excellent patrons of the arts, but the art they sponsored was different from that of their Italian counterparts. Their interests were along the lines of illuminated manuscripts, tapestries and furnishings (they owned quite a few castles, these Dukes). Things were different in Italy, where patrons were more keen on paintings, sculpture and architecture.
Finally, it's important to note that northern Europe enjoys different geophysical conditions than does (most of) Italy. For example, there are lots of stained glass windows in northern Europe partly for the practical reason that people living there have more need of barriers against the elements
RENAISSANCE AND MANNERIST SCULPTURE
The Italian Renaissance style in sculpture was carried to
France by Cellini, who worked in the court of Francis I. The Italian master
strongly influenced an entire generation of French artists, including Jean
GOUJON, who was notable as a sculptor of elegant Mannerist reliefs with strong
classical tendencies. Goujon's elongated and smoothly curved nymphs in fluid
poses survive in five relief panels on his Parisian Fontaine des Innocents
(1547-49); altered subsequently.
BAROQUE
AND ROCOCO SCULPTURE
As in painting baroque sculpture in Italy (Bernini) and
France exhibited characteristics of dramatic energy, decorative embellishment,
and theatrical grandeur. Bernini’s Apollo and Daphne (left) is a case in
point. Sculptures for Versailles in the “royal style” as it was called are good
examples of the baroque in France. An example is the model for an equestrian
statue of Louis
XIV by Girardon (r).
NEOCLASSICAL SCULPTURE
The neoclassical style (see NEOCLASSICISM, art) began in
Rome in the 1750s with the archaeological researches of Johann Joachim
WINCKELMANN, who sharply distinguished Greek classical art, which
he praised, from Roman classical art, which he denounced. Antonio CANOVA, whose
foremost patrons were Napoleon Bonaparte and his family, was one
of several influential sculptors who dominated the neoclassical movement, which
became international in scope from the 1790s to the end of the Victorian era. On
the right is Canova’s “Pauline Borghese as Venus.” Jean Antoine HOUDON also
produced many popular sculptures in the neoclassical style. The French
19th-century sculptors Francois RUDE, Antoine Louis BARYE, and Jean Baptiste
CARPEAUX, working in a romantic style, created sculpture of surpassing quality
in an age that preferred empty academic or cloying sentimental sculptural wares.
Neo-classical sculpture was a return to the classical simplicity and idealism of
the human form that characterized the High Renaissance. Subjects now, however,
were not biblical and mythological heroes but the leaders of the time as well as
influential citizens. The sculptural style of the French and American
revolutions was the neo-classical with the clear allusion to the republic of
Rome and the democracy of Greece.
The late-19th-century French sculptor Auguste RODIN exploited all aspects of classical sculpture. In his art, Rodin was not so much a shaper of 20th-century developments as he was a sculptor who shred neoclassicism of its sentimentality and its disguised eroticism. His carved marble sculptures are imbued with sexual intensity; his bronze busts project the strong personalities of many famous contemporaries; and his monumental sculptures are overwhelming in their balance of mass and form. This concern for monumentality is reflected in the work of his gifted pupil Emile Antoine BOURDELLE.
Rodin
One
of the greatest and most prolific sculptors of the 19th century, Auguste Rodin {roh-dan'},
b. Nov. 12, 1840, d. Nov. 17, 1917, succeeded, often contentiously, in bringing
new life and direction to a dying art. 
Today
major collections of his work on permanent display are at the Musée Rodin (Hotel
Biron, Paris), the Rodin Museum (Philadelphia), and the California Palace of the
Legion of Honor (San Francisco).
The son of a minor employee of the Parisian police department, Rodin enrolled at the age of 14 in the Ecole Impériale Spéciale de Dessin et de Mathématiques, a school that trained craftsmen and decorative artists. Rodin began (1857) earning his living as a studio helper on ornamental detail for other sculptors. At the same time he found time to work at home on his own projects and to continue studies in anatomy and, with Antoine Louis Barye, in sculpture.
In 1875-76, after an exhilarating trip to Italy and firsthand knowledge of the sculptures of Michelangelo, Rodin completed his first masterwork, The Vanquished, a young male nude later called The Age of Bronze. This sculpture led to the first of numerous public controversies that were to beset Rodin throughout his career. Accustomed to the highly artificial appearance of most 19th-century academic sculpture, the critics of the day refused to believe that Rodin was able to model a figure so realistically without using plaster casts of a live model. In 1880 he received a commission from the French government to design monumental doors for a proposed new museum, a work that preoccupied him for the rest of his life. His starting point was Dante's Inferno, but the many figures he created in plaster for his Gates of Hell -- including models for The Thinker (1880) and The Kiss (1886) -- came to represent the sculptor's own vision of humanity's anguished progress.
During
the 1880s, Rodin became one of the most successful French artists. He received
many commissions for public monuments, including The Burghers of Calais
(1884-95), the Monument to Victor Hugo (1889-1909), and the Monument to Balzac
(1891-98). 
Although
Rodin regarded this last work -- a dramatic portrayal of Balzac's spirit -- to
be one of his greatest, the society that commissioned it rejected the piece as
an unfinished and grotesque botch. This led to one of the most bitter public
debates in the history of 19th-century art.
Rodin was not only a sculptor of public monuments but a tireless artist who produced numerous small and intimate sculptures. These works range from highly developed pieces such as Eternal Spring (1884) and The Kiss, two of his most popular studies of youthful passion, to fragmentary studies of limbs and heads. He was also much in demand as a portrait sculptor and produced memorable images of many of the most famous men and women of his time.
After 1900, Rodin worked mostly on a smaller scale, for example, on studies of ballet dancers (c.1910-12) and on drawings. The outbreak of World War I in 1914 brought him considerable hardship; his health and mental stability gave way rapidly before his death in 1917.
TWENTIETH-CENTURY SCULPTURE
During the 20th century, sculpture underwent the most
radical changes in its history. The emergence of CUBISM and ABSTRACT ART brought
down the dominance of Greek and Roman principles of ideal form and realistic
detail. Representational sculpture, continuing under the influence of such
late-19th-century artists as Rodin, Augustus SAINT-GAUDENS, and Medardo ROSSO,
remained the primary mode of expression for numerous sculptors. Aristide MAILLOL
and Henri MATISSE continued figural representation within their national and
stylistic traditions, many of them variants of EXPRESSIONISM.
Georges BRAQUE and Pablo PICASSO applied to sculpture the cubist theories they had invented, with such sculptors as Aleksandr ARCHIPENKO, Raymond DUCHAMP-VILLON, and Jacques LIPCHITZ following their lead. Other revolutionary movements followed: Italian FUTURISM, exemplified by the work of Umberto BOCCIONI; Russian CONSTRUCTIVISM, established by Vladimir TATLIN and perpetuated by the brothers Naum GABO (Pevsner) and Antoine PEVSNER; DADA, with "found objects" by Marcel DUCHAMP; SURREALISM, as in the disparate works of Max ERNST, Alberto GIACOMETTI, and Man RAY; and the biomorphic abstractions of Jean ARP and Constantin BRANCUSI
With these Picassos the ideal human form of the renaissance has been completely abandoned.
And it is worthwhile to compare Rodin’s “The Kiss” from the 19th c. with Brancusi’s “The Kiss” of 1908 to see what the modernist movement did to sculptured forms (see below, left).
Boccioni’s futurist “Continuity in Space” captures motion in bronze, while Brancusi’s “Bird in flight” does it more symbolically.
