Pendant of Osorkon II

We just learned about the Younger Memnon statue.

Another Egyptian sculpture is the Pendant of Osorkon II.

Through the years of the Egyptian empire, there were many myths about different gods.
The stories about how they looked and who they were changed for many years.
Like for a while Horus was the brother of Isis and Osiris, but then later the stories changed and Horus was the son of Isis and Osiris.

When people started making sculptures of them people decided on what each character would look like, so that when you saw a sculpture you know which person it was, and the stories didn't change as much after that.

This is a sculpture of Horus, Osiris and Isis.
Horus has a falcon's head, Osiris has a feathered tiara, and Isis has a horned disk.

There are markings on the statue showing that it was made for the Pharaoh Osorkon II, and was probably in his temple somewhere.
In those days the Pharaoh was very powerful, and people believed the Pharaoh would become part of the mythology after his death.


(from: wikipedia - art of ancient egypt)


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Younger Memnon

We just learned about Nefertiti Bust sculpture.

Another ancient sculpture is the Younger Memnon statue.
This is the sculpture of an ancient Egyptian Pharaoh named Ramesses II or Ramesses the Great, and it is over 8 feet tall and 6 feet wide.
The statue used to have a lower body and legs, but they were broken.

This statue used to stand outside a large temple called the Ramesseum, a temple built for the pharaoh.
Rameses II was pharaoh for a long time and had many temples, statues and sculptures built through the time he was a ruler.


(from: wikipedia - younger memnon)


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Nefertiti Bust

We just learned about Tutankhamun's Mask.

Another famous ancient sculpture is the Nefertiti Bust.

A bust is a sculpture of the head and shoulders of a person.

This sculpture was made of limestone on the inside, and then stucco on the outside.
Stucco is like paste, and the sculptor used a few layers to make the face the way he wanted.
Once the shape was done, he painted it.

The right eye is made of black quartz, black paint and beeswax.
The pupil of the left eye is missing.
Some people think maybe the real person lost her left eye and maybe they made the statue to match it.
Others think maybe the sculptor left it open to help students learn how to make eyes.

Because the sculpture was so beautiful, Nefertiti was known all over the place as the beautiful wife of the pharaoh.
She also was the mother of the wife of Tutankhamen.
The hat she is wearing is called the Nefertiti cap crown.


(from: wikipedia - nefertiti bust)


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Tutankhamun's Mask

We just learned about the Statue of Gudea.

Another ancient sculpture is Tutankhamun's Mask.

The mask is made of gold and weighs 22 lbs.
The face of the mask is a sculpture of the pharaoh's face.
It has inlays of colored glass and gems made of lapis lazuli, quartz, obsidian, carnelian, feldspar, turquoise, amazonite, faience and others.

The beard is inlaid with lapis lazuli.

On the back and shoulders are ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs that write out what was thought of as a protective spell in ancient Egypt.



(from: wikipedia - tutankhamun's mask)


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Statue of Gudea

We just learned about the Cylinder Seal sculptures.

Another set of sculptures are the many statues of Gudea.

Gudea was a king in the land of Mesopotamia thousands of years ago.
The people he ruled over made many statues of him, and many of them survived for thousands of years.

The statues were made of different types of stone called alabaster or diorite.


(from: wikipedia - statues of gudea)


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Cylinder Seal

We just learned about the sculpture the Lyres of Ur.

Other famous sculptures are the ancient Cylinder Seals.

Around 3,500 years ago, people would take stone, metal or even jewels and carve them into a cylinder shape.
Then they would carve a hole through the middle so they were like a tube.
On the outside of the tube they would carve pictures that would tell a story, send a message, or maybe be like a signature for someone.

Then they would roll the cylinder along some wet soft clay, and it would leave a print on clay.
The clay dried and they would have a picture.


(from: wikipedia - cylinder seal)


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Lyres of Ur

We just learned about the Copper Bull sculpture.

Another ancient sculpture is the Bull's Lyre, a bull's head sculpture that was part of three ancient lyres (also known as harps) discovered that were over 4,000 years old.

These lyres are believed to be the oldest stringed instruments still intact.

The sculpture of the bull's head is made of gold, with eyes made of mother-of-pearl and lapis lazuli.
Other parts of the bull's body were made of wood but they did not survive after the thousands of years it was buried.


(from: wikipedia - lyres of ur)


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Copper Bull

We just learned about the ancient sculpture Ram in a Thicket.

Another ancient sculpture is the Copper Bull.

This sculpture was discovered in 1923 in the country of Iraq, and it was made over 4,000 years ago.

The sculpture was made of wood covered in sticky black bitumen (also known as asphalt), and then copper plates were nailed to the outside of it.


(from: wikipedia - copper bull)


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Ram in a Thicket

We just learned about the ancient sculpture the Trundholm Sun Chariot.

Another ancient sculpture is called Ram in a Thicket.

This is a sculpture of a ram that is caught in some sort of a bush. There were two of these sculptures found, and they seem to be a pair that stood across from each other.

The person that found them named them ram in a thicket after the story of Abraham where God provided a ram for him to sacrifice.

Since it was very old and had been buried under a lot of dirt, some parts of the statue were rotten and had to be remade to try and make it look like it did long ago.

This sculpture has a wooden middle, that was carved for the face and legs.
The head and legs are covered in gold leaf hammered to the wood and stuck there with a sticky black gooey oil called bitumen or asphalt.
The ears are made of copper which has turned green.
The ram's horns and fleece on it's shoulders are made of lapis lazuli.
The fleece on the body is made of shells stuck to bituman.
It's belly is made of silver plate.
The tree or bush is covered in gold leaf and gold flowers.
It is standing on a small rectangle covered in shells, red limestone and lapis lazuli.
There used to be small silver chains around the ram and trees, but those were too old to recover.



(from: wikipedia - ram in a thicket)


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Trundholm Sun Chariot

We just learned about the ancient sculpture the Gundestrup Cauldron.

Another ancient sculpture is called the Trundholm Sun Chariot.

This sculpture was made out of bronze, with some gold parts on one side, which is called gilding.

It was made using something called lost wax casting.
This means someone started off with a sculpture made of wax, made a shell of sand, and used hot ovens to pour melted metal into the shell to make the sculpture.

The horse is pulling a circle that looks like the sun.
Long ago people did not know about how the planets and stars worked, so some people believed stories about the sun being pulled across the sky by a magical horse.


(from: wikipedia - trundholm sun chariot)


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Gundestrup Cauldron

We just learned about the sculpture Guennol Lioness.

Another sculpture is the Gundestrup Cauldron.

This is a large metal bowl that was made thousands of years ago, and has many carvings on the side of people and animals.

In order to make this bowl, they had to find some rocks that had silver in them, and put them in a hot fire where everything burned away except the silver.
This is called cupellation.

Then they took the silver bars and pounded them flat, then heated them up again so they could pound some shapes and pictures into the silver.
This is called annealing and repoussé.

Next they used some hard tools called punches and tracers to poked holes, make dents and lines on the metal for pictures.
They added some other metals on the outside like gold and silver to make it look nice.
This is called gilding.

Last they put some pieces of glass into the carvings on the bowl.
This is called inlay.


(from: wikipedia - gundestrup cauldron)


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Guennol Lioness

We just learned about the swimming reindeer prehistoric art.

Some ancient art from an area known as Mesopotamia is called the Guennol Lioness.

It is a sculpture of a woman mixed with a lion.

(from: wikipedia - guennol lioness)


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Swimming Reindeer

We just learned about the prehistoric art Lion Man
.
Another work of prehistoric art is the sculpture Swimming Reindeer.

This is a carving of two reindeer swimming, made out of mammoth tusk.
It was found in France in 1866 buried 23 feet underground.

It was very interesting because reindeer don't live in France anymore, and it was carved from the mammoth which is now extinct.


(from: wikipedia - swimming reindeer)


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Lion man of the Hohlenstein Stadel

We just learned about the famous work of art the Metz & Co showroom by Bart van der Leck.

One of the oldest sculptures ever found in history goes all the way back to prehistoric times.
It was a statue of a person with a lion's head, carved out of ivory.


(from: wikipedia - lion-man)


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Revolving Torsion - Gabo

We just learned about the work of art Dance. An Objectless Composition by Alexander Rodchenko.

Another famous work of art is the sculpture Revolving Torsion by Russian artist Naum Gabo.

This was another constructivist work of art.

(from: wikipedia - naum gabo)


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Statue of Liberty - Bartholdi

We just learned about the famous work of art the Bethlehem Mural by artist Banksy.

Another famous work of art is the Statue of Liberty by French artist Frédéric Auguste Bartholdi in 1887.

Bartholdi liked America a lot because they gained their freedom from the British during the American Revolutionary War, and then they abolished slavery after the civil war. He also liked that America was a place that a lot of people moved to from other countries, when people were looking for a place to start new families and build new homes.

He came and visited America a few times, and when he was on the boat coming over he saw an island by New York that was empty, so he had the idea to put a statue there as a symbol of freedom for America.

He also wanted the people in his home country of France to look at the freedom that America had, and hopefully try to push for their own freedom.

The statue is of a Roman goddess named Libertas who stood for liberty and freedom.
In one arm she is holding a torch high to shine the light of freedom to the world.
In her other arm she is holding a tablet that has the year of America's independence, July 4th, 1776.

The statue was built piece by piece in France, and the pieces were shipped over the Atlantic Ocean to America to be put together.

After it was built it became a symbol of American Freedom for all travelers coming to the America from other countries.

(from: wikipedia - statue of liberty)


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The Thinker - Auguste Rodin

We just learned about the famous painting Charles IV of Spain and His Family by Spanish painter Francisco Goya.

Another famous work of art is The Thinker sculpture by French artist François-Auguste-René Rodin in 1904.

It is a bronze sculpture, usually on a stone pedestal.
About 28 copies of the sculpture were made, some in plaster and some in bronze.

The artwork was first called The Poet, and it was made as part of a bigger group of sculptures that were all characters from a book called The Divine Comedy.
Many people think the Thinker statue was the author and main character named Dante.


(from: wikipedia - the thinker)


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Little Dancer of Fourteen Years - Edgar Degas

We just learned about the work of art The Snail - By Henri Matisse.

Another famous work of art is a sculpture called Little Dancer of Fourteen Years made by French Edgar Degas in 1881 in Paris.

Degas was famous for making paintings, sculptures, prints, and drawings.
Many of his paintings were about ballet dancers, and this statue is of a young girl who was a ballet student in Paris.

The statue is made of wax, and has a real shirt, tutu and slippers, and even has a wig made of real hair.
When he made the statue, he started off with some lead pipes all connected together to act like a skeleton so he could make the wax body and it wouldn't fall apart.
A metal skeleton like the one he made is called an armature.

Some people looked at the little girl and thought she was uncomfortable trying to put her body in the right ballet pose, and others thought she looked beautiful because she was a young girl trying to be the best dancer she could.


(from: wikipedia - Little Dancer of Fourteen Years)


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The Equestrian Statue of Gattamelata - Donatello

We just learned about the famous artwork Whistler's Mother.

Another famous piece of art is a sculpture called The Equestrian Statue of Gattamelata made by Donato di Niccolò di Betto Bardi, also known as Donatello in Padua Italy in 1453.

The statue is made of bronze, which is copper mixed with some other metals.

To make a bronze statue back then, people had to do something called Lost Wax Casting.
First they had to carve a statue out of wax, then cover it with a lot of a type of sand.
Then they took the sand and heated it up until it was a hard ceramic shell, almost like a pottery vase.
When they did that, the wax melted and poured out.
After that they heated up the metal until it was liquid and poured it into the ceramic shell.
They let the metal cool down, and then broke off the pottery.
Underneath was a metal copy of the wax sculpture!
They polished it up and they were all done.

The statue that he made was of a man named Erasmo of Narni, but his nickname was Gattamelata, which means sweet cat.
He was a powerful warrior in Italy a long time ago.

The horse has his foot on a globe which is supposed to mean that Gattamelata could control the world, and he sat on his horse standing up holding a staff and wearing a sword showing that he was powerful.

The big box underneath the horse statue has sculptures on it of some angels, and gates for where he might go when he died.

(from: wikipedia - equestrian statue of gattamelata)


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