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The History of Sculpture
mid-200s
bce
, to spread the religion around India. As Hinduism became
more important, more statues of Hindu gods and goddesses appeared.
Buddhist art also made its way into China. In one place called the
Longmen Grottoes, caves contain thousands statues of Buddhas and
Buddhists. A recent study that tried to count them all came up with
142,289. China has a long history of sculpture, from ceramic pottery to
tombs complete with thousands of statues. The tomb of Shi Huangdi con-
tains more than six thousand terracotta life-size soldiers standing guard
over the king.
OCEANIA
Hundreds of large and small Pacific islands make up the region we call
Oceania. People on these islands have been creating sculptures for
thousands of years, just like people everywhere else in the world.
Early sculptures from Oceania included artistic baskets. Later on,
sculptors began to create wooden carvings. Wooden sculptures adorned
masks, boats, and bowls.
The island of New Guinea in particular has a long sculpture tradi-
tion. Early stone sculptures of figures are common there, and so are
decorated mortars and pestles, which are used to crush and grind food.
The mortars and pestles are carved into reliefs, and have bird or human
heads on them.
On Easter Island, huge stone sculptures called moai stand looking
inland to the island. They represent different chiefs of the people who
lived on Easter Island. People today still can’t quite figure out how the
stones were carved and transported to their sites, because they’re so
large and weigh so much. It’s a mystery!
MODERN
For most of sculpture’s history, artists had created figures of gods, peo-
ple, or animals. Modern sculptors were interested in moving beyond