CHAPTER II: SCULPTURE

What is Sculpture?

Sculpture, an artistic form in which hard or plastic materials are worked into three-dimensional art objects.
The designs may be embodied in freestanding objects, in reliefs on surfaces, or in environments ranging from
tableaux to contexts that envelop the spectator. An enormous variety of media may be used, including clay,
wax, stone, metal, fabric, glass, wood, plaster, rubber, and random “found” objects. Materials may be carved,
modeled, molded, cast, wrought, welded, sewn, assembled, or otherwise shaped and combined.

Sculpture is not a fixed term that applies to a permanently circumscribed category of objects or sets of
activities. It is, rather, the name of an art that grows and changes and is continually extending the range of its
activities and evolving new kinds of objects. The scope of the term was much wider in the second half of the
20th century than it had been only two or three decades before, and in the fluid state of the visual arts at the
turn of the 21st century nobody can predict what its future extensions are likely to be.

Certain features which in previous centuries were considered essential to the art of sculpture are not present in
a great deal of modern sculpture and can no longer form part of its definition. One of the most important of
these is representation. Before the 20th century, sculpture was considered a representational art, one that
imitated forms in life, most often human figures but also inanimate objects, such as game, utensils, and
books. Since the turn of the 20th century, however, sculpture has also included nonrepresentational forms. It
has long been accepted that the forms of such functional three-dimensional objects as furniture, pots, and
buildings may be expressive and beautiful without being in any way representational; but it was only in the
20th century that nonfunctional, nonrepresentational, three-dimensional works of art began to be produced.

Before the 20th century, sculpture was considered primarily an art of solid form, or mass. It is true that the
negative elements of sculpture—the voids and hollows within and between its solid forms—have always been
to some extent an integral part of its design, but their role was a secondary one. In a great deal of modern
sculpture, however, the focus of attention has shifted, and the spatial aspects have become dominant. Spatial
sculpture is now a generally accepted branch of the art of sculpture.

It was also taken for granted in the sculpture of the past that its components were of a constant shape and size
and, with the exception of items such as Augustus Saint-Gaudens’s Diana (a monumental weather vane), did
not move. With the recent development of kinetic sculpture, neither the immobility nor immutability of its
form can any longer be considered essential to the art of sculpture.

Finally, sculpture since the 20th century has not been confined to the two traditional forming processes of
carving and modeling or to such traditional natural materials as stone, metal, wood, ivory, bone, and clay.
Because present-day sculptors use any materials and methods of manufacture that will serve their purposes,
the art of sculpture can no longer be identified with any special materials or techniques.

Through all these changes, there is probably only one thing that has remained constant in the art of sculpture,
and it is this that emerges as the central and abiding concern of sculptors: the art of sculpture is the branch of
the visual arts that is especially concerned with the creation of form in three dimensions.
Sculpture may be either in the round or in relief. A sculpture in the round is a separate, detached object in its
own right, leading the same kind of independent existence in space as a human body or a chair. A relief does
not have this kind of independence. It projects from and is attached to or is an integral part of something else
that serves either as a background against which it is set or a matrix from which it emerges.

The actual three-dimensionality of sculpture in the round limits its scope in certain respects in comparison
with the scope of painting. Sculpture cannot conjure the illusion of space by purely optical means or invest its
forms with atmosphere and light as painting can. It does have a kind of reality, a vivid physical presence that
is denied to the pictorial arts. The forms of sculpture are tangible as well as visible, and they can appeal
strongly and directly to both tactile and visual sensibilities. Even the visually impaired, including those who
are congenitally blind, can produce and appreciate certain kinds of sculpture. It was, in fact, argued by the
20th-century art critic Sir Herbert Read that sculpture should be regarded as primarily an art of touch and that
the roots of sculptural sensibility can be traced to the pleasure one experiences in fondling things.

All three-dimensional forms are perceived as having an expressive character as well as purely geometric
properties. They strike the observer as delicate, aggressive, flowing, taut, relaxed, dynamic, soft, and so on.
By exploiting the expressive qualities of form, a sculptor is able to create images in which subject matter and
expressiveness of form are mutually reinforcing. Such images go beyond the mere presentation of fact and
communicate a wide range of subtle and powerful feelings.

The aesthetic raw material of sculpture is, so to speak, the whole realm of expressive three-dimensional form.
A sculpture may draw upon what already exists in the endless variety of natural and man-made form, or it
may be an art of pure invention. It has been used to express a vast range of human emotions and feelings from
the most tender and delicate to the most violent and ecstatic.

Types of Sculpture
Relief
Many people are familiar with this kind
of sculpting, through seeing it or
working on it. Typically, these forms come out of a flat surface, in a way that seems that the figures are
emerging from the material used. They then project onto a three-dimensional space that is quite
shallow. You will notice that in these figures, the background is not of importance and does not add or
take away from the objects. It is thus possible to understand the relayed message by getting a view of
the front.

The three basic forms of relief sculpture:

Carving

Carvers create art by chipping away at or cutting material to achieve the design that they have in
mind. They thus
require hard materials such as wood and stone which they can work on with ease, and they use chisels
or other sharp tools in their creation. Given that carving involves taking away mass from the material
in play, it sometimes gets referred to as a subtractive process. The impressive thing about this form is
that most of the sculptures made in the past are as a result of its use.

Full Round Sculpting

This form also goes by the name free standing. It exists in a three-dimensional space and owing to this;
you need to walk around the creation to see all its aspects. Unlike in relief where a frontal view will give
you the idea behind the work, there is a lot more to see in this form. There are very many objects made
using this sculpting, especially the ones made in honor of remarkable people in the society.

Modelling
In this form, the artist uses a soft material that is easy to work with such as plaster or wax and they
slowly work on the object until they attain the desired design. The difference between this and carving
is that here, the artist adds to the material, rather than take away from it. For this reason, it sometimes
gets referred to as an additive process. Usually, the artist creates the form on top of another material
which can lend the object some support, thus allowing it to maintain its shape.

Casting

In this process, the artist adds a pliable or liquid material into a mold and allows it to harden. The
resultant object, known as a cast, takes the shape of the frame.

Site Specific Sculpting

This form of art also goes by the name installation sculpting, and it works in the transformation of
spaces to pieces of art. It uses the materials on site to help with the blending of the art with the location,
and you have to walk through the site to experience the art.
Development of Sculpture in the Philippines