Friday, January 22, 2010

Top 10: most famous sculptures and statues



If you want to impress people at cocktail parties, it’s nice to have the worldly appearance of someone who knows a lot about the famous sculptures and statues of the world. It is with this in mind that we present our picks for the TOP 10 Sculptures of all time.

 

#10 - Savannah Bird Girl Statue

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The Savannah Bird Girl statue was sculpted in 1936 by Sylvia Shaw Judson commissioned for a garden in Massachusetts. However, 4 bronze statues were cast from the mold and one ended up in Bonaventure Cemetery in Savannah Georgia. For 48 years it remained relatively unknown piece of art. Then in 1994 the photo of The Bird Girl Statue appeared on the best selling novel, “Midnight in the Garden of Good & Evil” by John Berendt. Taken by Jack Leigh, a respected Savannah photographer, the photo showed the statue placed against a background of trees covered in spanish moss and created the perfect mood for the story. In fact, one can speculate that the way that the girl is holding the bowls conveys a weighing of good and evil although it is doubtful that this was intended in the original sculpture.

Due to the popularity of the novel, the Bird Girl Statue had to be removed from the Bonaventure Cemetery. It can now be viewed at the Telfair Museum of Art in Savannah.

Sylvia Shaw Judson, the artist who created Bird Girl was born in 1897 and grew up in Lake Forest, Ill. While her notoriety was primarily limited to the Chicago area, her work was exhibited in The Whitney Museum of Modern Art and the Philadelphia Museum of Art before her death in 1978.

 

#9 – Hermes

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While the sculpture Hermes with Dionysius may not be as well known as other famous statues, it is truly one of the greatest works of art that exists today. It is one of the only remaining masterpieces of the Ancient Greek sculptor Praxiteles dating back to 343 BC. Found at Olympia, intact and on its base, it still resides at the Archaeological Museum at Olympia.

 

#8 - The Discus Thrower

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#7  - Lady Justice Statue

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#6 - The Kiss

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#5 - Caesar Augustus

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#4 - The Pieta

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#3 - The Thinker Statue

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#2 - The Venus de Milo

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#1 - The Statue of David

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3 comments: on "Top 10: most famous sculptures and statues"

Waltsense.com said...

U think David would of wanted his penis just a tad larger...just sayn..

blogger said...

Maybe you just wish yours wasn't so small Walt. Can't figure out why "Winged Victory" isn't on the list when others made it?

Unknown said...

In the Renaissance it was a societal belief that larger penises were more barbaric, a sign of a man less civilized and enlightened/ educated. Someone less evolved than their modern day man, fyi. Perhaps it was for demonstration purposes, due to a different reason/ cultural aspect, or earlier time, but the prostitutes quarters in the city of Pompeii show extremely large and often unnaturally oversized phallus - but once again- this is thought to be more tradesperson menus or iconography of their services than anything else.

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