I.

Introduction

Sculpture (Latin, sculpere, “to carve”), the art of creating representational or abstract shapes, either in the round as free-standing sculpture or in relief sculpture. Usage, if not logic, tends to restrict the term today to objects considered to have some artistic merit so that shop dummies and even waxworks are generally excluded. Distinction is usually made between the sculpture and the “statue”, the latter term being normally confined to figures, life-size or over, in a public place.