How to Appreciate Sculpture

Art Appreciation

Like painting, sculpture is first and foremost a visual art, so the more we see, the more our eyes become acquainted with the medium, and the faster our appreciation. To help you learn (or teach students) how to appreciate the wonderful plastic art of sculpture, this webpage contains explanations of most of the major schools, from the Stone Age to the present day. It includes references to the aesthetics of the movement and to important sculptors and their works, with individual explanations where appropriate. No educational article however can compare with a visit to a sculpture gallery, garden or museum, where you can walk around the exhibits and study them from different angles. So check out our list of the best art museums. After all, sculpture, unlike painting, is a three-dimensional art, and can only be appreciated properly in the flesh.

Jaipur Moorti Mahal - 3-D Art Work

How to Appreciate Stone Age Sculpture

Prehistoric sculpture first appears in the Paleolithic era (up to 10,000 BCE), in the form of two primitive effigies: the basaltic figurine known as the Venus of Berekhat Ram and the quartzite figurine we know as the Venus of Tan-Tan. Both have been carbon-dated to 200,000 BCE, or earlier. Unfortunately, neither looks very lifelike.

Coinciding with the replacement of Neanderthal Man by anatomically modern humans such as Cro-Magnon Man, from 40,000 BCE onwards, art blossoms throughout Europe. The earliest lifelike sculptures are the Paleolithic ivory carvings of the Swabian Jura - featuring birds, animals, and therianthropic figures, discovered in the caves of Hohle Fels, Vogelherd, and Hohlenstein-Stadel. These simple but beautiful works date from 35,000-30,000 BCE.

At the same time, a diverse assortment of small, obese, female-shaped sculptures, known as "venus figurines" are made, which archeologists have since unearthed at Stone Age settlement sites all over Europe, from Russia to Gibraltar. Believed to have been used as fertility symbols, and carved from a variety of materials including mammoth bone, bone ash, ceramic clay, oolitic limestone, steatite, serpentine, or volcanic rock, these venus figures have been located in sites across Europe, from Russia to Spain. In addition to the extreme old age of these artifacts (the Venus of Hohle Fels [38-33,000 BCE] is the earliest ivory carving and the oldest known figurative sculpture, while the extraordinary Venus of Dolni Vestonice [26,000 BCE] is the oldest known clay sculpture in the world), the most extraordinary thing is the relative similarity of these figures.

From the era of Neolithic art, the most extraordinary piece of 3-D art is the Romanian terracotta sculpture known as the Thinker of Cernavoda (c.5,000 BCE), a small figure who sits deep in thought. Highlights from the Neolithic era include the Maikop Gold Bull (c.2500 BCE) a wonderful gold sculpture made in the North Caucasus region using the lost-Wax casting method; and the dazzling Dancing Girl of Mohenjo-Daro (c.2500 BCE), a bronze statuette from the Harappan Culture of the Indian Indus Valley Civilization.

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