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Sculpture has been a central aspect of almost every art culture, contemporary or historical. This volume comprises ten essays at the cutting edge of thinking about sculpture in philosophical terms, representing approaches to sculpture from the perspectives of both Anglo-American and European philosophy. Some of the essays are historically situated, while others are more straightforwardly conceptual. All of the essays, however, pay strict attention to actual sculptural examples in their discussions. This reflects the overall aim of the volume to not merely “apply” philosophy to sculpture, but rather to test the philosophical approaches taken in tandem with deep analyses of sculptural examples. There is an array of philosophical problems unique to sculpture, namely certain aspects of its three-dimensionality, physicality, temporality, and morality. The authors in this volume respond to a number of challenging philosophical questions related to these characteristics. Furthermore, while the focus of most of the essays is on Western sculptural traditions, there are contributions that feature discussion of sculptural examples from non-Western sources. Philosophy of Sculpture is the first full-length book treatment of the philosophical significance of sculpture in English. It is a valuable resource for advanced students and scholars across aesthetics, art history, history, performance studies, and visual studies.

This study looks at the development of figurative sculpture in ancient Chinese and traditional West African sculpture, aiming to preserve insights for future generations. While there has been a burgeoning corpus of scholarly inquiry exploring China-Africa relations, much of the research remains siloed, focusing exclusively on one region’s artistic traditions. The absence of comparative studies examining the intersections of symbolism, and form in the sculptural practices of these regions presents a significant scholarly gap. Addressing this, the study employs qualitative research methods, utilizing stylistic and iconographic analysis to compare the development of selected traditional figurative sculptures. The analysis emphasizes formal aesthetics, including visual elements, posture, defining characteristics, and production principles. Findings reveal that both traditions serve as profound expressions of cultural identity and spiritual beliefs, employing distinct stylistic and iconographic frameworks. Ancient Chinese sculptures emphasize spiritual similitude and symbolic adherence, while West African works often prioritize generic physiognomy and cultural symbolism. By bridging these artistic traditions, the study enhances appreciation for their unique contributions and provides valuable insights into their historical and societal contexts, enriching global art history discourse and fostering a deeper understanding of transcontinental artistic heritage.

In Islam, God’s wondrous creativity is reflected in the unity of design in the widest diversity and beauty of the cosmos. For some Muslims, Islamic art expresses this natural beauty as well as the miracles of God’s creation related in the Qur’an and the prophetic traditions (aḥādīth). This article focuses on Hassan al-Turabi’s perceptions of the arts and the aura of conservative prohibition and cautious permission that surrounds them. For him, the Islamic attitude toward the arts and aesthetics is determined by monotheism (tawḥīd), which entails one’s absolute belief in God’s oneness and the abjuration of anything that might compete with it or with His omnipotence. God has created in beauty a dualistic nature: guidance (belief and faith) and temptation (seduction and aberration) for humanity.

Early art: Venus in transit The Hohle Fels Venus is a 5 cm-high figurine of a woman with grotesquely exaggerated sexual features, carved from mammoth-ivory at least 35,000 years ago. Discovered in six pieces in September 2008 at the base of thick and well-stratified Aurignacian deposits at Hohle Fels Cave in southwestern Germany, the Venus may be the oldest-known example of figurative art, 5,000 years older than the next-oldest examples, the well-known 'Venuses' of the Gravettian culture. The 'Venus of Hohle Fels', discovered in a cave in southern Germany, may be the oldest-known example of figurative art. The mammoth-ivory carving of a woman with grotesquely exaggerated sexual features is at least 35,000 years old, and may be 5,000 years older than the next-oldest example of so-called 'Venus' figurines. Despite well over 100 years of research and debate, the origins of art remain contentious 1 , 2 , 3 . In recent years, abstract depictions have been documented at southern African sites dating to ∼75 kyr before present ( bp ) 4 , 5 , and the earliest figurative art, which is often seen as an important proxy for advanced symbolic communication, has been documented in Europe as dating to between 30 and 40 kyr  bp 2 . Here I report the discovery of a female mammoth-ivory figurine in the basal Aurignacian deposit at Hohle Fels Cave in the Swabian Jura of southwestern Germany during excavations in 2008. This figurine was produced at least 35,000 calendar years ago, making it one of the oldest known examples of figurative art. This discovery predates the well-known Venuses from the Gravettian culture by at least 5,000 years and radically changes our views of the context and meaning of the earliest Palaeolithic art.

Picasso, escultura, vanguardias, figuración, escultura enciclopédica Abstract: One of the most original sculpture methods invented by Picasso was the one he named encyclopedic, in which the creative technique was used with an unexpected freedom giving birth, once again, to new representative space or creative foundation. [...]on the one hand, the creative duality acknowledgeable in the formal aspects, must be added, considering the genius contribution of the amazing technique, with which he integrated real objects in modelled configurations in a certain degree, always essential, capable of integrating diverse densities and textures recognizable in their original character and provided of a novel sense of expression in its new function. [...]on the other, for specific visually solid compact groupings in the bronze castings. [...]they had not been fully studied. The detailed study of all Picasso's Boisgeloup encyclopedic sculptures of the period between 1933 and 1934, offered here for the first time, without exclusions of any kind, allows the identification of the origin of the different resources and elucidate the order of appearance with their determined scope. Este último las expuso como consecuencia de un largo proceso, que pasó por la incorporación de texturas vaciadas de objetos reales en los originales modelados, entre las que citó Gallo III, Mujer con hojas, Mujer acodada y Busto de hombre barbado, en Boisgeloup, en 1933 y 1934; la incorporación de objetos diversos con intereses formales, en las que, por su tamaño, denominó obras menores, como la Venus del gas, en París, desde 1935 a 1945; las primeras obras en gran formato, entre ellas Mujer con naranja, en París, en torno a 1940; las esculturas con maniquíes, comunes a las modeladas y vaciadas con los moldes en fresco, caso de Mujer con vestido largo, en París, en 1941 y 1942, que equiparó con el Hombre del cordero; las esculturas que integran elementos o proceden de las técnicas de la cerámica, como Mujer embarazada, en Vallauris, en 1950; y, por último, y una vez ensamblado y vaciado el original de Cabeza de toro, escultura realizada exclusivamente con objetos encontrados, en 1942, los originales a los que denominó de modo específico así, esto es, Mujer con cochecito, Niña saltando la comba, Mandril con cría y Cabra, y a los que, aun con esa identidad, se refirió como esculturas pintadas, en las series, La grulla, Mujer leyendo y Bodegones (Spies, 1989, pp. 250-251 y 256).

This article considers the work of Egyptian sculptor Mahmud Mukhtar (1891–1934) in a wider context than that of figurative art in the Arab world. Often, comparison between works of Egyptian artists and those of their Europeans counterparts has been avoided under the assumption that Arab artists were behind the times. This paper places Mukhtar within a broader artistic movement known as the “return to classical order”, a reaction against the that was widespread during the interwar period. The “return to classical order” was not limited to Europe but involved other countries of the Mediterranean. In this context, we can say that Mukhtar belonged to a generation of international artists who wanted to recover the foundations of academic training. His reinterpretations of other statues and models always have an Egyptian touch, however. His works speak of a quest for national identity even as they deeply engage with the European Modernism of the interwar period.

Ozyurt Ozcan explores the architectural sculpture with figurative and floral decoration of the Byzantine Period at Mugla, Bodrum, and Milas Archeological Museums. These stone works of art with figurative decoration reflect the characteristics of the capital and nearby provinces with regards to iconography and motifs; but it is possible that they also reflect a unity with regions neighboring Caria in the rendering of the figures and craftsmanship quality.

Explores the role of New York artists, critics and institutions in the development of modernism in Colombia focusing on the intercultural exchange between New York City and Bogotá, Colombia. The author examines the development of non-objective, abstract art in Colombia with reference to works by the Colombian artists Edgar Negret and Eduardo Ramírez-Villamizar produced in New York, describes how Negret's series of sculptures and wall reliefs in painted metal 'Magic Machines' (1956-1963; col. illus.) and Ramírez-Villamizar's series of sculptural reliefs 'White Reliefs' (1959-1964; col. illus.) are informed by the artists' interaction with contemporary American artists, and considers the extent to which these art works reflect the arrival of a new style of abstraction in New York belonging to a classical tradition. She concludes by arguing that Negret's and Ramírez-Villamizar's abstractions promoted an alternative aesthetic leading to a sense of openness and internationalism in Colombian modern art.