Statue
A statue is a freestanding three-dimensional artwork depicting a person, animal, or other subject, typically made from durable material.
Sculpture: Three-dimensional art shaped by carving, modeling, casting, or assembling materials. Statues are freestanding works within this broader art form.
Statue of Liberty: A monumental copper statue on Liberty Island in New York Harbor, dedicated in 1886. Its scale and symbolic role make it a defining public statue.
Monument: A structure or work of art created to commemorate a person, event, or idea. Statues often serve as monuments, though many monuments are not statues.
Relief sculpture: Sculpture in which figures project from a flat background surface. Unlike a freestanding statue, a relief remains attached to a supporting plane.
Carving: A subtractive process that shapes material by cutting or chipping parts away. Stone and wood statues are often made by removing material from a block.
David (Michelangelo): A marble statue of the biblical David sculpted by Michelangelo between 1501 and 1504. It exemplifies the Renaissance ideal of the monumental human figure.
Commemoration: The act of preserving the memory of a person, event, or group through public or private observance. Statues can give lasting, visible form to acts of remembrance.
Bust (sculpture): A sculpture depicting a person's head, neck, and usually part of the chest and shoulders. A bust is a partial figure rather than a complete freestanding subject.
Lost-wax casting: A metal-casting method in which a wax model is replaced by molten metal. It enables detailed bronze statues to be cast from a model.
Terracotta Army: A collection of life-size clay soldiers and horses buried near the tomb of China's first emperor. Its thousands of individualized figures form an exceptional sculptural ensemble.