Sculpture

Egyptian soldiers leading prisoners, part of a carving from the tomb of the Egyptian king Horemheb, Egypt (18th Dynasty), about 1220 BC. Limestone, 62 cm wide.

📖 In short

Sculpture is the art of making solid shapes from stone, wood, metal or clay. You can walk around a sculpture and look at it from every side, unlike a painted picture. It's one of the oldest arts in the world.

🤩 Did you know?

Egypt's Sphinx was carved from one huge rock more than 4500 years ago.
The Statue of Liberty is made of copper, and it's green because of the air and rain.
Some sculptors make sculptures from ice or sand.
The oldest known sculptures are tens of thousands of years old.

🔎 Find out more

🌟 Different ways to sculpt

Some sculptors carve stone or wood with a chisel and hammer, removing what they don't need, some shape clay with their hands, and some pour melted metal into molds.

🔍 Giant sculptures

Some sculptures are small enough to hold in your hand, and some are huge, like the Sphinx in Egypt and the Statue of Liberty in New York.

💡 Relief carving

Not all sculpture is whole statues: relief carving is pictures and decorations that stand out a little from the surface of a wall or door, like the carvings on the walls of ancient Egyptian temples.

🎯 Try sculpting

You can start sculpting with modeling clay or dough, or by carving a bar of soap with a plastic spoon, to make a little animal or a funny face.

📸 More pictures

The Kailasa Temple at Ellora, India, eighth century AD, carved out of solid rock.

“Unique Forms of Continuity in Space”, made by the sculptor Umberto Boccioni in 1913, in bronze, 1.10 meters high.

A bowl shaped like a jaguar, Peru (Chavín style), between 1200 and 400 BC, 17 cm high.

🧩 Test yourself

1 What tool does a sculptor use to carve stone?

2 Which of these is a famous sculpture in Egypt?

3 Egypt's Sphinx was carved from one huge rock more than ?? years ago.

4 Which picture shows “Sculpture”?