6 Types of Sculpture: A Guide to European Sculptural Styles

Sculptures are three-dimensional works of art made from materials like stone, metal, ceramics, and wood. Sculptors use a variety of methods to construct works of art, including carving, constructing, modeling, and casting.

The history of sculpture traces back to the dawn of civilization.

• Prehistoric sculptures (40,000—4,000 BCE): Prehistoric sculptures ranged from stone carvings to bronze castings. Other prehistoric sculptures were carved out of clay, bone, wood, and stone. One of the oldest known sculptures is Lion-man of the Hohlenstein-Stadel, a figurine carved from mammoth ivory found in Germany.
• Ancient sculptures (4,000 BCE—400 CE): Ancient sculptures include large ancient Egyptian statues like the Great Sphinx of Giza and sunken relief sculptures carved into stone—many of which featured Egyptian gods. Art historians delineate ancient Greek sculptures into three periods: Archaic, Classical, and Hellenistic. As ancient Greece developed through the centuries, Greek sculptures transformed from early rigid works to extremely sophisticated artworks.
  
• Medieval sculptures (400—1400s): After the fall of the Roman empire, sculptors across Europe created predominantly religious artworks. During the Dark Ages, the Catholic Church gained power and influence, commissioning sculptures featuring Christian iconography. Near the end of the Medieval period, the Gothic style became popular with Italian artists like Giotto and Duccio, who created Gothic sculptures for cathedrals and abbeys.
• Renaissance sculptures (1400–1600s): During the Renaissance in Europe, sculptors created classical works made from bronze and marble. The most well-known sculptor of this period is Michelangelo, whose marble sculptures changed the course of art history. His iconic freestanding sculpture David (1501–1504) still stands in Florence today. Another of his marble sculptures, Pietà (1498–1499), depicts the Virgin Mary holding the body of Jesus.
• Baroque, Rococo, and Romantic sculptures (1600–1850s): During these periods, sculptures became even more ornate, elegant, and often erotic. The subject matter of these sculptures moved away from the religious and toward the individual, characterized by artworks like Claude Michel’s terracotta sculpture The Intoxication of Wine (1780–1790).
• Modern and contemporary sculptures (1860s to present day): Modern art sculptures encompass a wide range of art movements, including Cubism, Russian Constructivism, Dadaism, and more. Artists like Alexander Calder developed kinetic sculptures that move. Throughout his career, Pablo Picasso made experimental sculptures out of a wide range of materials, including cardboard, clay, and found objects.

There are several ways that artists create sculptures. Consider some of the different forms of sculpture.

1. 1. Relief sculpture: Relief sculptures include images carved from a flat surface of the same material. There are a few variations of this form: high relief with the images clearly projecting above the backdrop, low relief (also known as bas-relief) with the images only slightly raised, and sunken relief with the images carved in, never rising above the backdrop.
2. 2. Freestanding sculpture: Freestanding sculptures are three-dimensional objects unattached to any backdrop. This style of sculpture can be viewed from any angle with space on all sides.
3. 3. Carved sculpture: Carved sculptures are created through a subtractive process. For carved sculptures, use a chisel to chip away at material like wood or stone.
4. 4. Modeling sculpture: Use an additive process to create modeling sculptures by shaping a soft material like clay or wax. Clay sculptures are often fired in a kiln to harden.
5. 5. Assembled sculpture: Assembled sculptures also use an additive process with the sculptor combining various materials like scrap metal and found objects. Assembled sculptures are often held together by glue or welding.
6. 6. Cast sculpture: This method involves pouring a liquid material into a mold designed for a specific shape. This process allows for multiple copies of the same shape.

Explore the work of these influential sculptors.

1. 1. Auguste Rodin (1840–1917): French sculptor Auguste Rodin struggled early in his career when his drawings and sculptures were rejected by art schools and galleries. In his mid-30s, Rodin traveled to Italy and became inspired by Michelangelo’s sculptures. After returning to France, Rodin began creating bronze sculptures, revolutionizing the art world with works like The Kiss (1889) and The Thinker (1902).
2. 2. Louise Bourgeois (1911–2010): Louise Bourgeois was a French-American artist known for her large-scale freestanding sculptures like Maman (1999), a spider made from bronze, stainless steel, and marble that stands over 30 feet tall. Through her stark and surreal sculptures, Bourgeois explored themes of fear, sexuality, and childhood trauma.
3. 3. Marcel Duchamp (1887–1968): One of the most influential conceptual artists of the twentieth century, Marcel Duchamp began his career in Paris during the 1910s and eventually moved to New York during World War II. Duchamp is most well known for his early readymade sculptures like Bicycle Wheel (1913), an example of his mixed-media style, and Fountain (1917), an everyday porcelain urinal.
4. 4. Henry Moore (1898–1986): English sculptor Henry Moore became fascinated by ancient and modern styles of sculpture at a young age. After abandoning the modeling process he learned in school, Moore developed a direct carving process that he used for sculptures like Bird Basket (1939) and Helmet Head and Shoulders (1952).

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