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SCULPTING
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mold at home! Instead, she would probably be creating her sculpture in
a studio that had special equipment and lots of safety precautions.
Sculptors who use less dangerous techniques may have art studios at
home, or they might rent a studio in a community art space. Potters can
make pieces at home, but they also must have access to a kiln so they
can fire their fragile pieces into hard objects.
OLD AND NEW
One of the most famous sculptors of all time lived long ago, in the
1400s. Michelangelo was an Italian Renaissance sculptor, as well as a
painter,
architect
, and writer. His work represents a lot of the old ways
of making sculptures, including the materials and techniques he used.
Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni was born in 1475 in
Italy. A family of stonecutters raised him, so he learned about stone and
carving very early on in life. He also liked to study the painters who
decorated churches near where he lived. Because of his love of art and
painting, he became an
apprentice
to a painter in Florence.
But Michelangelo was destined to be more than a painter. He soon
started studying sculpture at the Medici palace. The Medicis were a
very powerful family in Florence, so Michelangelo had access to all the
knowledge and teaching he could want. Pretty soon he was creating
professional sculptures. And all this was when he was still in his early
teens!
Michelangelo’s sculptures tended to imitate earlier Greek and Ro-
man classical styles. His figures were very muscular, and often looked
like the stone had aged over time even when they were brand new. His
Pieta
statue of Mary and Jesus demonstrates some of his best work. He
carved it out of one piece of marble. The figures barely look like they’re
carved out of stone, though—the fabric, skin, and expressions of the
sculpture look almost real. The
Pieta
now sits at St. Peter’s Basilica in
Vatican City.