King David was a favorite subject of other Italian masters, as the religious figure was also famously represented by Donatello and Giovanni Lorenzo Bernini. Other famous Michelangelo sculptures include “Pietà” (1498-99) and Moses (1513-15). One of the most famous sculptures of the High Renaissance is Michelangelo’s marble statue of “David” (1501-04), showing the muscular hero standing in repose after having slain Goliath. Such reactionary movements hastened the age of 20th century Modernism, and after generations of representing forms more or less true to nature, an explosion of experimentation had begun with such movements as Cubism, Surrealism, Abstraction, Abstract Expressionism, and Minimalism, among many others. The 19th century Romantics sought to break free from classical order in favor of intense emotion, and the Impressionists replaced the formulaic themes of neoclassicism with naturalism and individualism. High drama, prodigious techniques, and dynamism characterized sculpture from the Baroque and Rococo periods.

In the 14th and 15th Century, interest in Greek classicism took hold and religious-themed sculptures shared the stage with sculptural portraits, tombs, animal statues, and works based on Greek mythology. Prior to this, however, sacred figures dominated Gothic sculpture in 12th century Europe in the form of reliefs and statues for grand-scale cathedrals.

Ancient civilizations of Egypt, Mesopotamia, and Minoa also yielded fine examples of figurative sculpture, but the art form flourished in the hands of the ancient Greek sculptors, whose lifelike works would eventually influence the masters of the High Renaissance. For example, an ivory carving of a woman known as the “Venus of Hohle Fels” may be as old as 40,000 years, and examples of what may be ‘pre-sculptural’ forms date as far back as 230,000 years.

Sculpture may very well be the earliest art form, as carved/etched rocks in the shape of humans and animals predate the oldest known cave paintings.

3d artwork sculptures