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History

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The great civilizations of the old world worked in bronze for art, from the time of the introduction of bronze for edged weapons. The Greeks were the first to scale the figures up to lifesize. Very few examples exist in good condition of these cast works. The seawater-preserved bronze, now called "The Victorious Athlete" is a fine example but painstaking efforts were required to bring it to its present state for museum display. Far more Roman bronze statues have survived. Over the long creative period of Egyptian dynastic art, small lost wax bronze figurines were made in large numbers and several thousand of them have been conserved in museum collections. From these beginnings, bronze art has continue to flourish up to the present.

Bronze is the most popular metal for cast metal sculptures; a cast-metal sculpture of bronze is often called a bronze. Common bronze alloys have the unusual and very desirable property of expanding slightly just before they set, thus filling the finest details of a mold.

The strength and lack of brittleness (ductility) of the material is an advantage when figures in action are to be created, especially when compared to various ceramic or stone materials (see marble sculpture for several examples). These qualities allow the creation of extended figures (as in Jeté), or figures that have small cross sections in their support (such as the equestrian statue of Richard the Lionheart), both shown to the right. The value of the bronze for other uses is disadvantageous to the preservation of bronze scuptures; few large ancient bronzes have survived as during wartime many were remelted to make weapons or to create new sculptures commemorating the victors, while a far larger portion of contemporary stone and ceramic sculptures have survived, even if only in fragments subsequently reassembled.

The manufacture of bronzes is highly skilled work, and a number of distinct casting processes may be employed, including lost-wax casting (and its modern-day spin-off ceramic shell casting), sandcasting and centrifugal casting. In the lost-wax casting method, the artist starts with a full-sized model of the sculpture, most often a clay model. A mold is made from the clay pattern; a wax is then cast from the mold. The wax is then invested in another kind of mold or shell, which is heated in a kiln until the wax runs out. The investment is then filled with molten bronze. Students of bronze casting will usually work in direct wax, where the model is made in wax. Should the casting process fail, the artwork will also be lost.

Another form of sculptural metal art to use bronze is ormolou. Ormolou is a finely cast soft bronze that is then gilded (coated with gold) which results in a matt gold finish. Ormolou was popularised in the 18th century in France and is typically found in such forms as wall sconces (wall mounted candle holders), inkstands, clocks and garnitures. Ormolou wares can be identified by their matt gold finish and clear ring when tapped, this indicating the underlying bronze as opposed to a cheaper metal alloy such as spelter or pewter.

Other Wikipedia articles:

Sculptors

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• Leonard Crunelle
• Maggi Hambling
• Henry Moore
• Enzo Plazzotta
• Lorado Taft
• Felix de Weldon
• Leonard Wells Volk

People

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• Andrew Browne Cunningham, in Trafalgar Square, London, England.
• George VI of the United Kingdom, at Carlton House Terrace, London, England.
• Horatio Nelson, 1st Viscount Nelson - relief panels of his Victory at Cape St Vincent, and Death.
• A conversation with Oscar Wilde by Maggi Hambling, installed in Adelaide Street, near Trafalgar Square, London in 1998.
• Shepherd and Sheep by Dame Elisabeth Frink Paternoster Square
• Young Dancer by Enzo Plazzotta, on Broad Street, London.
• Temperance, a statue atop a drinking water fountain to the north end of Blackfriars Bridge, London.

• in the National Statuary Hall Collection, United States Capitol, Washington, USA, 55 statues, including
  • Edward Lewis Bartlett
  • George Clinton
  • John Campbell Greenway
  • Ernest Gruening
  • Eusebio Francisco Kino
  • Joseph Wheeler

Abstract and Symbolic

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• Henry Moore bronzes

Animals

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• Charging Bull - by Arturo Di Modica, in Bowling Green park near Wall Street in New York City
• Mustangs at Las Colinas
• Nelson's Column - Sir Edwin Landseer's Lions guard the diagonals

See also

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• Erotic art in Pompeii
• List of artworks
• List of sculptors

External links

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• Flash animation of lost-wax casting
• lost-wax casting process

Sculpture | Casting