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Bronze David Made in the 1440′s, by Donatello (1386-1466), Bronze David is one of the most famous sculptures today. It is notable as the first unsupported standing work in bronze cast during the Renaissance period, and the first freestanding nude male sculpture made since antiquity. It depicts the young David with an enigmatic smile, posed with his foot on Goliath’s severed head just after killing the giant. The youth is standing naked, apart from a laurel-topped hat and boots, bearing the sword of Goliath. There is also much speculation as to when it was built. Suggested dates vary from the 1420s to the 1460s, although the exact date is not known.
Savannah Bird Girl Statue The sculpture, known as the Bird Girl, was created in 1936, by sculptress Sylvia Shaw Judson (1897-1978) in Lake Forest, Illinois. It achieved fame when it was featured on the cover of the 1994 novel, Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil. It was sculpted at Ragdale, the summer home of her family. Bird Girl is cast in bronze and stands 50 inches tall. She is the image of a young girl wearing a simple dress and a sad or contemplative expression, with her head tilted to the left. She stands straight, her elbows propped against her waist as she holds up two bowls out from her sides. The bowls are often described by viewers as “bird feeders.”
The Discus Thrower The Discus Thrower, or the Discobolus, is a famous lost Greek bronze original. The sculpture of it is still unknown. The Discobolus was completed towards the end of the severe period (460-450 BC). It is known through numerous Roman copies, both full-scale ones in marble, such as the first to be recovered, the PalombaraDiscopolus, or smaller scaled versions in bronze. As always in Greek athletics, the Discus Thrower is completely nude.
The Kiss The Kiss is an 1889 marble sculpture by the French sculptor, Auguste Rodin (1840-1917). This sculpture has a interesting story to it. it depicts the 13th-century Italian noblewoman immortalized in Dante’s Inferno, who falls in love with her husband, Giovanni Malatesta’s, younger brother Paolo. Having fallen in love while reading the story of Lancelot and Guinevere, the couple are discovered and killed by Francesca’s husband. In the sculpture, the book can be seen in Paolo’s hand. The lover’s lips do not actually touch in the sculpture to suggest that they were interrupted, and met their demise without their lips ever having touched. When critics first saw the sculpture in 1887, they suggested the less specific title Le Baiser (The Kiss).
MonywaBuddhas Monywa is a city in central Myanmar located on the banks of the Chindwin River. Just east of the city is the Po KhaungTaung, a range of hills where you can see the Monywa Buddha– the largest reclining Buddha statue in the world. This colossal figure measures 90 meters (300 feet) in length. The head alone is 60 feet high. The Monywa Buddha was constructed in 1991 and is hollow inside, allowing visitors to walk along from the head to the feet. Inside the figure are 9,000 one-foot-high metal images of the Buddha and his disciples, depicting various representations of important events in the Buddha’s life. Recently a gigantic standing Buddha statue was built on top of Po Kaung Hills. At 132 meter (433 feet) high it is one of the largest Buddha statues in the world.
Ayutthaya Buddha Head Thailand’s city of Ayutthaya is the location of one of the world’s most unusual Buddhist statues. Among the ruins of WatMahathat (The Temple of the Great Relic) is the remains of a sandstone statue of the Buddha whose body has been lost to the ages but whose head rests appropriately in the climbing roots and vines of a tree. Around this famous figure are many other stature of the Ayutthaya period which have survived the ravages of time.
Little Mermaid The statue of The Little Mermaid sits on a rock in the Copenhagen harbor at Langelinie in Denmark. Tourists visiting for the first time are often surprised by the relatively small size of the statue. The Little Mermaid statue is only 1.25 meters high and weighs around 175 kg. Designed by EdvardEriksen, the statue was erected in 1913 to commemorate a play of the Little mermaid. The poor lady has lost her head several times but has each time been restored. Copenhagen officials announced that the statue may be moved further out in the harbour, as to avoid further vandalism and to prevent tourists from climbing onto it.
Moai The world famous moai are monolithic statues located on Easter Island, one of the most isolated islands on Earth. The famous statues were carved by the Polynesian colonizers of the island, mostly between circa 1250 AD and 1500 AD. In addition to representing deceased ancestors, the moai may also have been regarded as the embodiment of powerful living or former chiefs. The tallest moai erected, called Paro, was almost 10 meters (33 ft) high and weighed 75 tonnes. The heaviest erected was a shorter but squatter moai weighing 86 tons and one unfinished sculpture, if completed, would have been approximately 21 meters (69 ft) tall with a weight of about 270 tons. The statues were till standing when Europeans first visited the island, but most would be cast down during later conflicts between clans. Today about 50 moai have been re-erected on Easter Island or museums elsewhere
Christ the Redeemer Christ the Redeemer is a statue of Jesus Christ in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Located at the peak of the 700 meters (2,300 ft) Corcovado mountain, it provides a sweeping panorama from the interior of Guanabara bay to the north, to Lagoa Rodrigo de Freitas to the south. The statue stands 39.6 meters (130 ft) tall, including its 9.5 meters (31 ft) pedestal, and 30 meters (98 ft) wide. It is one of the tallest of its kind in the world though the statue of Cristo de la Concordia in Bolivia, is slightly taller. A symbol of Christianity, the famous statue has become an icon of Rio and Brazil.
Great Sphinx Located at the Giza Plateau near Cairo in Egypt, The Great Sphinx is one of the largest and oldest statues in the world, but basic facts about it, such as who was the model for the face, when it was built, and by whom, are still debated. It is the largest monolith statue in the world although it is considerably smaller than the Pyramids around it. Despite conflicting evidence and viewpoints over the years, the traditional view held by modern Egyptologists at large remains that the Great Sphinx was built in approximately 2500 BC by the pharaoh Khafre, the supposed builder of the second pyramid at Giza.
Statue of Liberty The Statue of Liberty, a gift from the people of France to celebrate the centennial of the signing of the United States Declaration of Independence, stands upon Liberty Island and is one of the most famous symbols in the world. It represents a woman wearing a stola, a radiant crown and sandals, trampling a broken chain, carrying a torch in her raised right hand and a tabula ansata tablet. The construction of the statue was completed in France in July 1884 and arrived in New York the following year. From 1886 until the jet age, it was often one of the first glimpses of the United States for millions of immigrants.
Mount Nemrut Nemrut is a 2,134 meter (7,001 ft) high mountain in southeastern Turkey, near the city of Adiyaman. In 62 BC, King Antiochus I Theos of Commagene built on the mountain top a tomb-sanctuary flanked by huge statues (8–9 m/26–30 ft high) of himself, two lions, two eagles and various Greek, and Persian gods. Since their erection, the heads have toppled from the bodies and lay scattered throughout the site. The summit of Mount Nemrut provides a great view of the surrounding mountains. The main attraction is to watch the sunrise from the eastern terrace which give the bodyless heads a beautiful orange hue and adds to the sense of mystery of the place.
Olmec Heads The Olmec were an ancient Pre-Columbian civilization living in the tropical lowlands of south-central Mexico, in what are roughly the modern-day states of Veracruz and Tabasco. The Olmec civilization flourished roughly from 1400 BC to about 400 BC. The most recognized aspect of the Olmec civilization are the enormous helmeted heads. The heads are thought to be portraits of rulers, perhaps dressed as ballplayers. No two heads are alike and the helmet-like headdresses are adorned with distinctive elements. There have been 17 colossal heads unearthed to date. The heads range in size from the Rancho La Cobata head, at 3.4 m high, to the pair at TresZapotes, at 1.47 m.
Mother Russia Statue The Mother Russia statue, also called The Motherland Calls, is a famous statue in Mamayev Kurgan in Volgograd, Russia commemorating the Battle of Stalingrad. When the memorial was dedicated in 1967 it was the tallest sculpture in the world, measuring 85 meters (279 feet) from the tip of its sword to the top of the plinth. The figure itself measures 52 metres (170 feet), and the sword 33 metres (108 feet). Two hundred steps, symbolizing the 200 days of the Battle of Stalingrad, lead from the bottom of the hill to the monument. The statue is currently leaning due to groundwater level changes causing movement of the foundations.
Lions of Delos Located near Mykonos, the island of Delos is one of the most important mythological, historical and archaeological sites in Greece. Delos had a position as a holy sanctuary for a millennium before Olympian Greek mythology made it the birthplace of Apollo and Artemis. The Terrace of the Lions was dedicated to Apollo by the people of Naxos shortly before 600 BC and had originally 9 to 12 marble guardian lions along the Sacred Way. Only 5 lions survived and from 3 lions fragments exists. The weather-battered originals were moved to the Archaeological Museum of Delos in 1999.
Alice in Wonderland Probably the most beloved sculpture of Central Park, New York, is a depiction in bronze of a group of characters from Lewis Carroll's 1865 classic tale Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. The sculpture was patterned off the original illustrations of John Tenniel that were used in the first published edition of the book. The obvious centerpiece of the work, Alice, who depicts the face of Creeft’s daughter, Donna, is pictured sitting on a giant mushroom reaching toward a pocket watch held by the White Rabbit. Peering over her shoulder is the Cheshire Cat, surrounded by the Dormouse, Alice's cat Dinah, and the Mad Hatter -- a caricature of George Delacorte. The statue stands 11 feet high and kids are invited to climb, touch and crawl all over Alice and her well loved friends.
Peter Pan A bronze statue of Peter Pan, "the boy who wouldn't grow up," is found in Kensington Gardens, next to Hyde Park, London. The exact location was chosen by Peter Pan's author, J.M. Barrie. Barrie lived close to Kensington Gardens and published his first Peter Pan story in 1902, using the park for inspiration. In his Peter Pan tale, The Little White Bird, Peter flies out of his nursery and lands beside the Long Water lake - on the spot where the statue now stands. Barrie began planning the Peter Pan statue in 1906. He took photos of the six-year-old Michael Llewelyn Davies wearing a special Peter Pan costume to help a sculptor recreate his vision. In 1912, he found the man to make the statue, Sir George Frampton, and by 1st May that year, the sculpture was in place in Kensington Gardens.
Fremont Troll The Fremont Troll is a 18-feet high concrete sculpture located under the north end of the George Washington Memorial Bridge (also known as the Aurora Bridge). It is clutching an actual Volkswagen Beetle, bearing California license plate, as if it had just swiped it from the roadway above.
The Thinker A bronze sculpture by Auguste Rodin. The work shows a nude male figure at about life-size sitting on a rock with his chin resting on one hand as though deep in thought, and is often used as an image to represent philosophy. There are about 28 full size castings, in which the figure is about 186 cm (73 in) high, though not all were made during Rodin’s lifetime and under his supervision. Rodin first conceived the figure as part of another work in 1880, but the first of the familiar monumental bronze appeared in 1904
Lincoln Memorial Experts say that his hands form a sign language version of the initials of the name of an American president. Allegedly, the sculptor Daniel Chester was a deaf-mute son, and he wanted to pay tribute to Lincoln for the university for the deaf – Gallauden – received a collegiate degree.
The Magic Tap Founded in Aqualand- Cadiz, Spain, The “Magic tap”, which appears to float in the sky with an endless supply of water. Actually, there is a pipe hidden in the stream of water that holds the whole structure.
Louise Bourgeois’s Spider Louise Bourgeois’s 30ft spider, made of bronze, stainless steel and marble, stands outside the Tate Modern. It is one of six built by the 95-year-old acclaimed artist.
Lady Justice The Lady Justice Sculpture is one of the greatest known sculptures in the world. This statue is not attributed to any one artist, but the fact that it adorns so many courthouses in the world has made it one of the more popular sculptures. This sculpture goes by many names, including Scales of Justice and Blind Justice, but is most commonly known as Lady Justice. The statue dates all the way back to ancient Greek and Roman times as the Goddess of justice and law.
Hermes and The Infant Dionysus Hermes and the Infant Dionysus, also known as the Hermes of Praxiteles or the Hermes of Olympus, is an ancient Greek sculpture of Hermes and the infant Dionysus, discovered in 1877, in the ruins of the Temple of Hera at Olympia. It is displayed at the Archaeological Museum of Olympia. It is traditionally attributed to Praxiteles and dated to the 4th century BC, based on a remark by the 2nd century Greek traveler Pausanias, and has made a major contribution to the definition of Praxitelean style. Its attribution is, however, the object of fierce controversy among art historians.The sculpture is unlikely to have been one of Praxiteles’ famous works, as no ancient replicas of it have been identified. The documentary evidence associating the work with Praxiteles is based on a passing mention by the second-century AD traveler Pausanias.
Pieta Created by Michelangelo (1475-1564), the Pieta depicts the Virgin Mary holding her only son, Jesus Christ, in her arms. Prior to sculpting the Pieta, Michelangelo was not a very known artist. He was only in his early twenties when he was told, in 1498, to do a life sized sculpture of the Virgin Mary holding her son in her arms. In about two years, from a single slab of marble, Michelangelo created one of the most beautiful sculptures ever.
