National Gallery of Art
The National Gallery of Art, and its attached Sculpture Garden, is a national art museum in Washington, D. C. located on the National Mall, between 3rd and 9th Streets, at Constitution Avenue NW. Open to the public and free of charge, the museum was established in 1937 for the American people by a joint resolution of the United States Congress. Andrew W. Mellon donated an art collection and funds for construction. The Gallery often presents temporary special exhibitions spanning the world and the history of art and it is one of the largest museums in North America. In 1930 Mellon formed the A. W. Mellon Educational and Charitable Trust, when quizzed by Abbot, he explained that the project was in the hands of the Trust and that its decisions were partly dependent on the attitude of the Government towards the gift. Designed by architect John Russell Pope, the new structure was completed and accepted by President Franklin D. Roosevelt on behalf of the American people on March 17,1941. Neither Mellon nor Pope lived to see the completed, both died in late August 1937, only two months after excavation had begun.
At the time of its inception it was the largest marble structure in the world, as anticipated by Mellon, the creation of the National Gallery encouraged the donation of other substantial art collections by a number of private donors. The Gallerys East Building was constructed in the 1970s on much of the land left over from the original congressional joint resolution. It was funded by Mellons children Paul Mellon and Ailsa Mellon Bruce, designed by famed architect I. M. Pei, the contemporary structure was completed in 1978 and was opened on June 1 of that year by President Jimmy Carter. The new building was built to house the Museums collection of paintings, sculptures. The design received a National Honor Award from the American Institute of Architects in 1981, the final addition to the complex is the National Gallery of Art Sculpture Garden. Completed and opened to the public on May 23,1999, the National Gallery of Art is supported through a private-public partnership. The United States federal government provides funds, through annual appropriations, to support the museums operations, all artwork, as well as special programs, are provided through private donations and funds.
The museum is not part of the Smithsonian Institution, noted directors of the National Gallery have included David E. Finley, Jr. John Walker, and J. Carter Brown. Rusty Powell III is the current director, entry to both buildings of the National Gallery of Art is free of charge. From Monday through Saturday, the museum is open from 10 a. m. –5 p. m. it is open from 11 –6 p. m. on Sundays and it is closed on December 25 and January 1. The museum comprises two buildings, the West Building and the East Building linked by an underground passage
Painting
Painting is the practice of applying paint, color or other medium to a solid surface. The medium is commonly applied to the base with a brush, but other implements, such as knives, Painting is a mode of creative expression, and the forms are numerous. Drawing, composition, narration, or abstraction, among other aesthetic modes, may serve to manifest the expressive, Paintings can be naturalistic and representational, abstract, symbolistic, emotive, or political in nature. A portion of the history of painting in both Eastern and Western art is dominated by motifs and ideas. In art, the term painting describes both the act and the result of the action, the term painting is used outside of art as a common trade among craftsmen and builders. What enables painting is the perception and representation of intensity, every point in space has different intensity, which can be represented in painting by black and white and all the gray shades between. In practice, painters can articulate shapes by juxtaposing surfaces of different intensity, the basic means of painting are distinct from ideological means, such as geometrical figures, various points of view and organization, and symbols.
In technical drawing, thickness of line is ideal, demarcating ideal outlines of an object within a perceptual frame different from the one used by painters. Color and tone are the essence of painting as pitch and rhythm are the essence of music, color is highly subjective, but has observable psychological effects, although these can differ from one culture to the next. Black is associated with mourning in the West, but in the East, some painters, theoreticians and scientists, including Goethe and Newton, have written their own color theory. Moreover, the use of language is only an abstraction for a color equivalent, the word red, for example, can cover a wide range of variations from the pure red of the visible spectrum of light. There is not a register of different colors in the way that there is agreement on different notes in music. For a painter, color is not simply divided into basic, painters deal practically with pigments, so blue for a painter can be any of the blues, phthalocyanine blue, Prussian blue, cobalt, and so on.
Psychological and symbolical meanings of color are not, strictly speaking, colors only add to the potential, derived context of meanings, and because of this, the perception of a painting is highly subjective. The analogy with music is quite clear—sound in music is analogous to light in painting, shades to dynamics and these elements do not necessarily form a melody of themselves, they can add different contexts to it. Modern artists have extended the practice of painting considerably to include, as one example, some modern painters incorporate different materials such as sand, straw or wood for their texture. Examples of this are the works of Jean Dubuffet and Anselm Kiefer, there is a growing community of artists who use computers to paint color onto a digital canvas using programs such as Adobe Photoshop, Corel Painter, and many others. These images can be printed onto traditional canvas if required, rhythm is important in painting as it is in music
Naumkeag
Naumkeag is the former country estate of noted New York City lawyer Joseph Hodges Choate located at 5 Prospect Hill Road, Massachusetts. The estates centerpiece is a 44 room, Shingle Style country house designed principally by Stanford White of McKim, Mead & White, and constructed in 1886 and 1887. The estate is noted for its gardens, which were designed in the mid-20th century by noted landscape designer Fletcher Steele in conjunction with Choates daughter Mabel. A National Historic Landmark District, Naumkeag is now owned by The Trustees of Reservations, the house is built in the Shingle Style with a wood-shingled exterior featuring brick and stone towers, prominent gables and large porch, and interiors with fine woodwork. It contains the Choate familys furniture, Chinese porcelain, and artwork collected from America, the house sits within 8 acres of terraced gardens and landscaped grounds surrounded by 40 acres of woodland and pasture. Its grounds were first designed in the late 1880s by Nathan Barrett, barretts original designs included two terraces, perennial beds, and an evergreen topiary.
Steeles additions include the Afternoon Garden, arguably his most famous design, the Blue Steps, colonial settlement of the Prospect Hill section of Stockbridge began with the towns founding as a Native American mission community in the 1730s. The future site of Naumkeag was probably acquired by New York lawyer David Dudley Field in the 1870s, Choates family had vacationed in Stockbridge, and had picnicked on the property. Choate persuaded Field to part with 40 acres on the side of the hill. Choate was a friend of architect Charles McKim, but most of the architectural design work was done by McKims partner Stanford White. Although design work shortly after the purchase, construction was delayed by the death of Choates son. The house was completed in 1887 at a cost of about $35,000, White was instrumental in providing the decorations and furnishings of the house, traveling to Europe with the Choates for the purpose. The house underwent a variety of alterations and additions, some guided by architects George de Gersdorff, the library was expanded in 1897, enclosing a space that had once served as a south-facing porch.
The number of bathrooms was raised from four to seven in the years of the 20th century. These changes, which included the addition of a porch to the bedroom, necessitated the addition of a dormer on the third floor. During the period of Mabel Choates ownership only modest changes were made, Joseph Choate first offered the landscape design to Frederick Law Olmsted, but rejected his proposal to place the house halfway down the hill, where a favorite oak tree was located. The landscaping contract was given to Nathan Barrett, a self-taught designer best known for his municipal work. Barretts vision of the landscape was implemented between 1884 and 1894 and his design included formal flower gardens near the house, and had a broad meadow slope down the hill, with an orchard and the family cemetery plot at the bottom
Phoenix Art Museum
The Phoenix Art Museum is the Southwest United States largest art museum for visual art. Located in Phoenix, the museum is 285, 000-square-foot, a community center since 1959, it hosts year-round programs of festivals, live performances, independent art films and educational programs. It has been designated a Phoenix Point of Pride, opened in 1959, the Phoenix Art Museum is located on the Central Avenue Corridor. Shortly after Arizona became the 48th state in 1912, the Phoenix Women’s Club was formed and worked with the Arizona State Fair Committee to develop a fine arts program. In 1915, the club purchased Carl Oscar Borgs painting Egyptian Evening for US$125, in 1925, the State Fair Committee expanded its community responsibilities and formed the Phoenix Fine Arts Association. The next major advance in the art community came during 1936. Its director was the painter Philip C and its success led to the creation in 1940 of the Civic Center Association, which set about raising funds and planning a building on a 6.
5-acre plot donated by the heirs of Adolphus Clay Bartlett. These heirs included Maie Bartlett Heard, who with her husband Dwight B, the structural engineering firm chosen for this project was Severud Associates. To coordinate this endeavor, the Phoenix Fine Arts Association named the Museum’s first Board of Trustees in 1952, the museum was officially dedicated on November 21,1959. Two years later, the announced plans for an expansion. Additional expansions, led by design architects Tod Williams Billie Tsien Architects of New York, the Museum more than doubled its size with new exhibition galleries, a 300-seat public theater, a research library, studio classroom facilities, the PhxArtKids Gallery, and a café. The museums growth has been funded, in part, by successful City of Phoenix Bond Elections, the Museum contains three specialized galleries, Art of Philip C. Curtis, Thorne Miniature Rooms, and PhxArtKids and it has Contemporary Art by Yayoi Kusama, Viola Frey, Kehinde Wiley, Jennifer Bartlett, Carlos Amorales and Helen Frankenthaler.
It has 20th Century Sculpture by Aristide Maillol, Max Ernst, Hans Arp, Jacob Epstein, the museum offers several educational programs. The museums Education Division programming is segmented by audience and type of learning strategy to accommodate a range of ages and learning styles, the Education Division facilitates a nationally competitive Internship program. Internships are offered to current undergraduates, graduate students, and recent graduates with requisite coursework, the program is offered year-round and project-based internships are offered on occasion. The Lemon Art Research Library is a research library with an emphasis on the museums art collection. It contains more than 40,000 books, artist files and it is the largest specialized fine arts library in the region
Princeton Battle Monument
The Princeton Battle Monument is located in Princeton, New Jersey, adjacent to Morven and Princetons borough hall. The Monument commemorates the January 3,1777 Battle of Princeton, and depicts General George Washington leading his troops to victory and it stands 50 feet tall and was inspired by carvings on the Arc de Triomphe in Paris. Designed to visually anchor the end of Nassau Street, the monument. An act of Congress in June 8,1906 appropriated $30,000 to be given to the Princeton Battle Monument Association for the erection of a monument commemorating the Battle of Princeton. The association, which dated back to 1887 and included local notables as Allan Marquand. On February 24,1908, having raised the requisite funds, the architectural design was done by Thomas Hastings of acclaimed firm Carrère and Hastings. It was difficult to find a location for the monument and it was first planned for the piece of land at the corner of Mercer. That triangular plot was cleared of buildings in 1913, but ultimately used for the Princeton War Memorial, in 1914, a piece of property was donated by the Princeton Inn Company.
This property provided not only space for the monument and a park. The MacMonnies design is a light-grey bas-relief with George Washington on horseback as the dominant figure, Washington is depicted sternly refusing defeat and inspiring his battle-weary troops to victory. Beneath Washington is a woman personifying Liberty, wearing a Phrygian cap. She is flanked by troopers and a boy of the Continental Army. Beneath can be seen the death of General Mercer, after whom the county would be named. The structure was intended to be bronze and granite. The monument, which was carved in situ by the Piccirilli Brothers was completed in 1922, the festivities were marked by a 21-gun salute by the Princeton University Field Artillery ROTC and an invocation by the Right Reverend Paul Matthews, bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of New Jersey. The President received a degree of Doctor of Laws from Princeton University the same day. Charles Stone of the New York firm Fischer Marantz Stone designed the lighting scheme, the treatment was carried out by Aegis Restauro, LLC led by conservators, Zbigniew Pietruszewski and Joanna Pietruszewski, and Farewell and Gatsch Architects.
In September 2007, the Monument was ceremoniously rededicated when the lights were switched on for the first time
Washington Square Park
Washington Square Park is a 9. 75-acre public park in the Greenwich Village neighborhood of Lower Manhattan, New York City. One of the best known of New York Citys 1,900 public parks, it is a landmark as well as a meeting place and it is operated by the New York City Department of Parks and Recreation. The Park is a space, dominated by the Washington Square Arch at the northern gateway to the park. The Parks fountain area has long been one of the popular spots for residents and tourists. Most of the surrounding the park now belong to New York University. Some of the buildings have built by NYU while others have been converted from their former uses into academic. Located at the foot of Fifth Avenue, the park is bordered by Washington Square North, Washington Square East, Washington Square South, while the park contains many flower beds and trees, little of the park is used for plantings due to the paving. The two prominent features are the Washington Square Arch and a large fountain and it includes childrens play areas and gardens, paths to stroll on, a chess and scrabble playing area, park benches, picnic tables, commemorative statuary and two dog runs.
The New York City Police Department operates security cameras in the park, the New York University Department of Public Safety keeps a watch on the park, and the city parks department has security officers who sometimes patrol the park. The area has a low rate in the safest big city in the United States. The land was divided by a narrow marshy valley through which Minetta Creek ran. In the early 17th century, a Native American village known as Sapokanican or Tobacco Field was nearby, by the mid-17th century, the land on each side of the Minetta was used as farm land by the Dutch. The Dutch gave the land to slaves, thus freeing them, the slaves that received the land were told that, although they were no longer slaves, they had to give a portion of the profits they received from the land to the Dutch West India Company. Also, their children would be born as slave, rather than free, the tract was in the possession of African Americans from 1643 to 1664. Today, the area, called The Land of the Blacks, is Washington Square Park, the ex-slaves who owned The Land of the Blacks included Paulo DAngola.
More information can be found at the exhibit Slavery in New York at the New-York Historical Society of Manhattan. It remained farmland until April 1797, when the Common Council of New York purchased the fields to the east of the Minetta for a new potters field and it was used mainly for burying unknown or indigent people when they died. But when New York went through yellow fever epidemics in the early 19th century, most of those who died from yellow fever were buried here, safely away from town, as a hygienic measure
World's Columbian Exposition
The Worlds Columbian Exposition was a worlds fair held in Chicago in 1893 to celebrate the 400th anniversary of Christopher Columbuss arrival in the New World in 1492. The centerpiece of the Fair, the water pool, represented the long voyage Columbus took to the New World. Chicago bested New York City, Washington, D. C. the Exposition was an influential social and cultural event and had a profound effect on architecture, the arts, Chicagos self-image, and American industrial optimism. The layout of the Chicago Columbian Exposition was, in part, designed by John Wellborn Root, Daniel Burnham, Frederick Law Olmsted. It was the prototype of what Burnham and his colleagues thought a city should be and it was designed to follow Beaux Arts principles of design, namely French neoclassical architecture principles based on symmetry and splendor. The color of the generally used to cover the buildings facades gave the fairgrounds its nickname. Many prominent architects designed its 14 great buildings and musicians were featured in exhibits and many made depictions and works of art inspired by the exposition.
The exposition covered more than 600 acres, featuring nearly 200 new buildings of predominantly neoclassical architecture and lagoons, more than 27 million people attended the exposition during its six-month run. Dedication ceremonies for the fair were held on October 21,1892, the fair continued until October 30,1893. On October 9,1893, the day designated as Chicago Day, the debt for the fair was soon paid off with a check for $1.5 million. Chicago has commemorated the fair one of the stars on its municipal flag. Schwab, Chicago railroad and manufacturing magnate John Whitfield Bunn, and Connecticut banking, the fair was planned in the early 1890s during the Gilded Age of rapid industrial growth and class tension. Worlds fairs, such as Londons 1851 Crystal Palace Exhibition, had been successful in Europe as a way to bring together societies fragmented along class lines, the first American attempt at a worlds fair in Philadelphia in 1876, drew crowds but was a financial failure. Nonetheless, ideas about distinguishing the 400th anniversary of Columbus landing started in the late 1880s.
Civic leaders in St. Louis, New York City, Washington DC and Chicago expressed an interest in hosting a fair to generate profits, boost real estate values, Congress was called on to decide the location. What finally persuaded Congress was Chicago banker Lyman Gage, who raised several million dollars in a 24-hour period, over. The exposition corporation and national exposition commission settled on Jackson Park, Daniel H. Burnham was selected as director of works, and George R. Davis as director-general. Burnham emphasized architecture and sculpture as central to the fair and assembled the periods top talent to design the buildings, the temporary buildings were designed in an ornate Neoclassical style and painted white, resulting in the fair site being referred to as the “White City”
Brooklyn Heights
Brooklyn Heights is an affluent residential neighborhood within the New York City borough of Brooklyn. Originally referred to as Brooklyn Village, it has been a prominent area of Brooklyn since 1834, the neighborhood is noted for its low-rise architecture and its many brownstone rowhouses, most of them built prior to the Civil War. It has an abundance of churches and other religious institutions. Brooklyns first art gallery, the Brooklyn Arts Gallery, was opened in Brooklyn Heights in 1958, in 1965, a large part of Brooklyn Heights was protected from unchecked development by the creation of the Brooklyn Heights Historic District, the first such district in New York City. The district was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1966, directly across the East River from Manhattan and connected to it by subways and regular ferry service, Brooklyn Heights is easily accessible from Downtown Brooklyn. The neighborhood stretches from Old Fulton Street near the Brooklyn Bridge south to Atlantic Avenue and from the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway to Court Street, adjacent neighborhoods are Dumbo, Downtown Brooklyn, Cobble Hill, and Boerum Hill.
Columbia Heights, an upscale six-block-long street next to the Brooklyn Heights Promenade, is considered to be its own neighborhood. As of 2000, Brooklyn Heights had a population of 22,594 people, the neighborhood is part of Brooklyn Community Board 2, and is served by the 84th Precinct of the New York City Police Department at 301 Gold Street in nearby Downtown Brooklyn. Brooklyn Heights occupies a palisade that rises sharply from the rivers edge, before the Dutch settled on Long Island in the middle of the seventeenth century, this promontory was called Ihpetonga by the native Lenape American Indians. Ferries across the East River were running as early as 1642, the most significant of the ferries went between the current Fulton Street and Peck Slip in Manhattan, and was run by Cornelius Dirksen. The ferry service helped the area to thrive, with both farms and some factories along the water, but the higher ground was sparsely used. They sold part of their land to John Jackson, who created the Vinegar Hill community, Pierrepont had accumulated 60 acres of land, including 800 feet which directly overlooked the harbor, all of which he planned to sub-divide.
Since his intention was to sell to merchants and bankers who lived in Manhattan, he needed easy access between Brooklyn Heights and New York City, which Fultons company provided. A resident of the Heights could leave the office at three oclock, have dinner at home at four oclock, and still have time for a drive to the outskirts of town. A select neighborhood and circle of society, where there had been only seven houses in the Heights in 1807, by 1860 there were over six hundred of them, and by 1890 the area was almost completely developed. Throughout the 19th century, Brooklyn Heights remained an elegant neighborhood and its development gave rise to offshoots such as Cobble Hill and, Carroll Gardens. Beecher was a nationally-known figure famous on the circuit for his novel oratorical style, in which he employed humor, dialect. To dramatize the plight of those held in captivity, Beecher once brought a female slave to the church and held an auction, with the highest bidder purchasing not the slave, but her freedom
Mary Foote
Mary Foote was an American painter and producer of notes of Carl Jungs seminars. As an artist, she lived and worked in New Yorks Washington Square, from 1928 to the 1950s she lived in Zurich and created and published notes of Carl Jungs seminars until World War II. She returned to the United States in the 1950s and spent her years in Connecticut. Mary Foote was the daughter of Charles Spencer Foote and Hannah Hubbard Foote and she was born in Guilford, Connecticut, as was her younger sister, Margaret Foote Hawley, who became an artist and painted a profile portrait of a girl named Mary Foote. After the girls were orphaned, Margaret was raised by her aunt, Harriet Foote Hawley and her husband in Washington, Mary was taken in by an aunt who lived in Hartford, Connecticut after she became an orphan at the age of 13. Her cousin was Lilly Gillette Foote, who was governess to Mark Twains children, for a period of time Mary Foote lived in the Mark Twain household and was friends with Susy Clemens.
Mary Foote was a member of the Daughters of the American Revolution, who was born and died in Guilford, was commended for his bravery by George Washington. Footes grandparents were George Augustus Foote and Eliza Spencer and her great-grandparents were Eli Foote, beginning in 1890, she studied art at Yale School of Art. In 1894, the Alice Kimball English Prize, which was established to support summer travel, was awarded to Foote. The William Wirt Winchester Prize, which funded two years of study in Europe, was awarded to Foote in 1897, It was considered the largest prize of its kind in the United States at that time, Foote travelled to Paris and studied with John Singer Sargent. She was a student of Frederick MacMonnies in Paris and Giverny and she made a portrait painting of MacMonnies. Her friends included art patron Mabel Dodge, dancer Isadora Duncan, author Henry James, writer Gertrude Stein, James McNeil Whistler, Ellen Emmet Rand, Foote painted a wide range of subjects including portraits, figures and landscapes.
Her work was exhibited at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, along with the works of Robert Henri, Cecilia Beaux, Edmund Tarbell and her work was described as follows, At the Armory Show in 1913, she exhibited Old Lady. Foote lived and worked in Peking, China from December 1926 into early 1927, during the 1920s, she shared her studio and had a relationship with Frederick MacMonnies, and went into a deep depression after it ended. She sought treatment from Smith Ely Jelliffe, and in 1927 closed down her studio, one of her friends, Robert Edmond Jones, a stage designer in New York, had been a patient of Carl Jung and Toni Wolff. He advised Foote, who has described as neurotic, to seek the treatment of Jung in Zurich. After closing her studio, Foote went to Zurich to see Swiss psychotherapist Carl Jung, beginning in 1928, she worked for Jung, first transcribing his seminars and editing Jungs English phrasing, and producing the bound copies for their participants. For instance, her notes became the basis for The Visions Seminars and her secretary and assistant from the 1930s until the seminar series ended with World War II was an Englishwoman, Mrs.
Emily Köppel, who was married to a man from Switzerland
Salon (Paris)
The Salon, or rarely Paris Salon, beginning in 1667 was the official art exhibition of the Académie des Beaux-Arts in Paris. Between 1748 and 1890 it was arguably the greatest annual or biennial art event in the Western world, at the 1761 Salon, thirty-three painters, nine sculptors, and eleven engravers contributed. From 1881 onward, it has been managed by the Société des Artistes Français, in 1667, the royally sanctioned French institution of art patronage, the Académie royale de peinture et de sculpture, held its first semi-public art exhibit at the Salon Carré. The Salons original focus was the display of the work of recent graduates of the École des Beaux-Arts, exhibition at the Salon de Paris was essential for any artist to achieve success in France for at least the next 200 years. Exhibition in the Salon marked a sign of royal favor, in 1725, the Salon was held in the Palace of the Louvre, when it became known as Salon or Salon de Paris. In 1737, the exhibitions, held from 18 August 1737 to 5 September 1737 at the Grand Salon of the Louvre and they were held, at first and biennially, in odd-numbered years.
They would start on the feast day of St. Louis, once made regular and public, the Salons status was never seriously in doubt. In 1748 a jury of awarded artists was introduced, from this time forward, the influence of the Salon was undisputed. The Salon exhibited paintings floor-to-ceiling and on every inch of space. The jostling of artwork became the subject of other paintings. Printed catalogues of the Salons are primary documents for art historians, critical descriptions of the exhibitions published in the gazettes mark the beginning of the modern occupation of art critic. The French revolution opened the exhibition to foreign artists, the vernissage of opening night was a grand social occasion, and a crush that gave subject matter to newspaper caricaturists like Honoré Daumier. Charles Baudelaire, Denis Diderot and others wrote reviews of the Salons, the 1848 revolution liberalized the Salon. The amount of refused works was greatly reduced, the increasingly conservative and academic juries were not receptive to the Impressionist painters, whose works were usually rejected, or poorly placed if accepted.
The Salon opposed the Impressionists shift away from traditional painting styles, in 1863 the Salon jury turned away an unusually high number of the submitted paintings. An uproar resulted, particularly from regular exhibitors who had been rejected, in order to prove that the Salons were democratic, Napoleon III instituted the Salon des Refusés, containing a selection of the works that the Salon had rejected that year. It opened on 17 May 1863, marking the birth of the avant-garde, the Impressionists held their own independent exhibitions in 1874,1876,1877,1879,1880,1881,1882 and 1886. In 1881, the government withdrew official sponsorship from the annual Salon, in December 1890, the leader of the Société des Artistes Français, William-Adolphe Bouguereau, propagated the idea that Salon should be an exhibition of young, not-yet awarded, artists
Sculpture
Sculpture is the branch of the visual arts that operates in three dimensions. It is one of the plastic arts, a wide variety of materials may be worked by removal such as carving, assembled by welding or modelling, or molded, or cast. However, most ancient sculpture was painted, and this has been lost. Those cultures whose sculptures have survived in quantities include the cultures of the ancient Mediterranean and China, the Western tradition of sculpture began in ancient Greece, and Greece is widely seen as producing great masterpieces in the classical period. During the Middle Ages, Gothic sculpture represented the agonies and passions of the Christian faith, the revival of classical models in the Renaissance produced famous sculptures such as Michelangelos David. Relief is often classified by the degree of projection from the wall into low or bas-relief, high relief, sunk-relief is a technique restricted to ancient Egypt. Relief sculpture may decorate steles, upright slabs, usually of stone, techniques such as casting and moulding use an intermediate matrix containing the design to produce the work, many of these allow the production of several copies.
The term sculpture is used mainly to describe large works. The very large or colossal statue has had an enduring appeal since antiquity, another grand form of portrait sculpture is the equestrian statue of a rider on horse, which has become rare in recent decades. The smallest forms of life-size portrait sculpture are the head, showing just that, or the bust, small forms of sculpture include the figurine, normally a statue that is no more than 18 inches tall, and for reliefs the plaquette, medal or coin. Sculpture is an important form of public art, a collection of sculpture in a garden setting can be called a sculpture garden. One of the most common purposes of sculpture is in form of association with religion. Cult images are common in cultures, though they are often not the colossal statues of deities which characterized ancient Greek art. The actual cult images in the innermost sanctuaries of Egyptian temples, of which none have survived, were rather small. The same is true in Hinduism, where the very simple.
Some undoubtedly advanced cultures, such as the Indus Valley civilization, appear to have had no monumental sculpture at all, though producing very sophisticated figurines, the Mississippian culture seems to have been progressing towards its use, with small stone figures, when it collapsed. Other cultures, such as ancient Egypt and the Easter Island culture, from the 20th century the relatively restricted range of subjects found in large sculpture expanded greatly, with abstract subjects and the use or representation of any type of subject now common. Today much sculpture is made for intermittent display in galleries and museums, small sculpted fittings for furniture and other objects go well back into antiquity, as in the Nimrud ivories, Begram ivories and finds from the tomb of Tutankhamun
United States
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. Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). 1911.
