A radical reassessment of the role of movement, emotion, and the viewing experience in Gothic sculpture Gothic cathedrals in northern Europe dazzle visitors with arrays of sculpted saints, angels, and noble patrons adorning their portals and interiors. In this highly original and erudite volume, Jacqueline E. Jung explores how medieval sculptors used a form of bodily poetics-involving facial expression, gesture, stance, and torsion-to create meanings beyond conventional iconography and to subtly manipulate spatial dynamics, forging connections between the sculptures and beholders. Filled with more than 500 images that capture the suppleness and dynamism of cathedral sculpture, often through multiple angles, Eloquent Bodies demonstrates how viewers confronted and, in turn, were addressed by sculptures at major cathedrals in France and Germany, from Chartres and Reims to Strasbourg, Bamberg, Magdeburg, and Naumburg. Shedding new light on the charismatic and kinetic qualities of Gothic sculpture, this book also illuminates the ways artistic ingenuity and technical skill converged to enliven sacred spaces.

Bottles aligned on shelves or suspended in the air, jars of marbles and dye-filled tubes: form, substance and structure emerge from deceptively humble means in the sculpture of Tony Feher. His work uses gravity, light and repetition to isolate and animate everyday objects, creating a sculptural territory that Feher can rightfully claim as entirely his own. Published in conjunction with a major retrospective exhibition organized by the Blaffer Art Museum, this is the first publication to explore work from throughout the artist's significant and influential career. This comprehensive book reproduces his many sculptures, site-specific installations and two-dimensional works and includes major new texts on Feher's practice from Blaffer Director Claudia Schmuckli and curator and writer Russell Ferguson. Superbly realized by renowned New York design studio Matsumoto Incorporated, this publication is the definitive book on the work of a vanguard American artist.

This book comprehensively examines the relationship between literature and sculpture in the work of W. B. Yeats, drawing on extensive archival research to offer revelatory new readings of the poet. The book traces Yeats's literary and critical engagement with Celtic Revival statuary, public monuments in Dublin, the coin designs of the Irish Free State, abstract sculpture by the Vorticists and modernists, and a variety of carvings, decorative sculptures, and objets d'art. By charting Yeats's early art school education in Dublin, his attempts to raise funds for public monuments in the city, and to secure commissions for his favourite sculptors, the book documents a lifelong interest in the plastic arts. New and original readings of Yeats's poetry, drama, and prose criticism emerge from this concertedly inter-arts and interdisciplinary study.

Henry Moore's rise from Yorkshire miner's son to international acclaim as the twentieth century's greatest sculptor is one of the most remarkable stories in British art. In this revised, updated, expanded and redesigned new edition of The Life of Henry Moore, Roger Berthoud charts Moore's transition from controversial young modernist to pillar of the art-world establishment, garlanded with domestic and foreign honours. His account is enriched by the weekly interviews he did with Moore -- and his wife Irina -- before the sculptor's death in 1986, aged eighty-eight. At home and abroad Moore's sculptures aroused strong passions and were often the object of abuse, sharp criticism and even physical assault, as well as of admiration. He was attacked by younger artists, among others, who saw his growing fame as an obstacle to their advancement. He was to survive the ebb and flow in his reputation, and emerge with the status of a contemporary old master. From a mass of material, including recently discovered early letters, and interviews with Moore's friends, his former assistants and students, dealers, collectors, museum officials and leading architects with whom he worked, Roger Berthoud has built up a lively and engaging though not uncritical picture of Moore's long life and career in this definitive biography.

A COMPREHENSIVE GUIDE TO SCULPTING THE HUMAN FIGURE IN CLAY
In "Sculpting the Figure in Clay, "acclaimed portrait bust sculptor and author Peter Rubino teaches a master class in the essentials of figurative sculpture. In this intensive, all-inclusive guide, he introduces students to a natural, straightforward geometry that will help them become masters at forming figures in clay. Rubino's unique approach utilizes a geometric system consisting of blocks, simple shapes, and guidelines that instruct students in a new and instinctive sculptural style. With these easy-to-follow instructions and informative concepts, students will see figures as the basic shapes beneath the form as well as learn vital approaches such as BLT: Bend, Lean, and Turn, to create evocative expression, and the Three Ps: Position, Proportion, and Planes, for accurate representation. This unparalleled resource is the definitive guide to figurative sculpture.
TOPICS INCLUDE:
- The Fundamentals of the Clay Torso
- Observing the Model
- Essential Materials and Tools
- Sculpting the Female Torso from the Live Model
- Sculpting the Reclining Figure from the Live Model
- Sculpting the Hand, Foot, and Lower Arm
- Plus Many Photographic Reference Poses for continued Study

The art of Makoto Azuma uses flowers and plants as its starting point, but juxtaposes their timeless yet transient beauty with an incredibly diverse range of striking settings. In a series of sculptures, installations and interactive events, he delights in blurring the boundaries between nature and artifice. Azuma founded the floral atelier Jardins des Fleurs in 2002, taking commissions from private clients as well as brands and corporations, both in Japan and all over the world. His parallel career as an artist began in 2005 and involves creating and exhibiting artworks that turn flowers and plants into a medium for self-expression. In 2008, Azuma founded AMKK (Azuma Makoto Kaju Kenkyujo), a group specializing in experimental floral creation, with the aim of seeking new forms of botanical beauty and new ways to exhibit them. His works have travelled the globe, from barren deserts to frozen expanses, from thousands of feet below the sea to the very edge of space. Featuring more than sixty projects captured in breathtaking photography, this beautiful book is the most comprehensive showcase of Azuma's art ever published.

In Richard Deacon's solo exhibition Some Time, a refabricated version of his sculpture Never Mind takes pride of place among more than twenty-five other works. Over time, the original sculpture, made in 1993, proved to be incompatible with the natural environment of an open-air museum. Now, after a period of critical reflection and discussion with the artist himself, what he calls a 'refabrication' has taken place. Follow the artist and the museum's quest for an innovative, sustainable solution to the renewal of (or variation on) a monumental sculpture that offers a potentially new line of approach for the future. This book not only represents the Some Time exhibition, but thanks to its diversity of material, ranging from original sketches and intimate correspondence to construction photos from the workshop and installation shots, it also gives a unique insight into Deacon's working process. At the same time, it provides a moment of critical reflection from the perspectives of the various authors who have contributed to it. Text in English and Dutch.

The Sculpture of Kenneth Armitage, which is being published to coincide with the artist's centenary in 2016, is the first book to feature a fully illustrated inventory of all of Armitage's known sculptures. It will be the only available illustrated reference book on the sculptural work of this important 20th-century artist. Through an inventory of 298 pieces and an accompanying narrative text, the book undertakes an examination of Armitage's significant contribution to sculpture nationally and internationally during the second half of the 20th century, starting with the `geometry of fear' exhibition at the 1952 Venice Biennale and Armitage's solo contribution to the Biennale in 1958. It will be an essential reference resource for researchers, curators, dealers and collectors which will complement the complete sculpture catalogues already produced for Armitage's sculptor contemporaries Lynn Chadwick, Elisabeth Frink, Robert Adams and Reg Butler, enhancing our understanding of post-war British sculpture.

The work of the prize winning Peruvian American light artist Grimanesa Amoros is characterised by organic forms and an instinctive approach. The basis of her fascinating sculptures lies, however, in the natural sciences, social history and critical theory. Research and feeling establish a form of communication in her works. The expansive sculptures and video installations of Grimanesa Amoros have already been shown all over the world: from Mexico to Tel Aviv and from Beijing to Times Square in New York. She presented her latest works, "OCUPANTE" and "GOLDEN SECRET ROOM", In the Ludwig Museum Koblenz. The artist creat es playful light installations which are so enigmatic that they permit interpretations on different levels. Together with an overview of her work, this volume reproduces the works in large format illustrations, thereby reproducing their fluidity and luminosity.

The volume offers a historical-critical study on the entire career of Marco Tirelli (Rome,1956). His production - surprising and enigmatic - includes works on paper, works on canvas or wood, sculptures, installations, whose subjects always appear poised between recognisability and abstraction: the figures and scenes represented are made up of a densification of microscopic particles of colours that from a distance seem well defined, but which, when viewed from a short distance, break down. A subtle, intellectual painting, therefore, the result of an introspective investigation carried out with dedication. The same tension between illusion and reality, between light and shadow, also characterises the sculptures and installations, as documented in these pages. The volume includes a historical-critical essay by Antonella Soldaini, a conversation with the artist, a biographical note and a documentary summary. Text in English and Italian.

Renowned photographer Jonathan M. Singer presents his striking black-and-white images of Chinese ornamental rocks from a leading collection. Shaped by nature and selected by man, scholars' rocks, or gongshi, have been prized by Chinese intellectuals since the Tang dynasty, and are now sought after by Western collectors as well. They are a natural subject for the photographer Jonathan M. Singer, most recently acclaimed for his images of those other remarkable hybrids of art and nature, Japanese bonsai. Here Singer turns his lens on some 140 fine gongshi, ancient and modern, from the world-class collection of Kemin Hu, a recognized authority on this art form. In his photographs, Singer captures the spiritual qualities of these stones as never thought possible in two dimensions. He shows us that scholars' rocks truly are, in Hu's words, "condensations of the vital essence and energy of heaven and earth." Hu contributes an introductory essay on the history and aesthetics of scholars' rocks, explaining the traditional terms of stone appreciation, such as shou (thin), zhou (wrinkled), lou (channels), and tou (holes). She also provides a narrative caption for each stone, describing its history and characteristics. Spirit Stones forms a trilogy with Singer's two previous books, Botanica Magnifica and Fine Bonsai. In these volumes, he has established a new style of photography that blends the tonal richness and chiaroscuro of Old Master painting with a scientific clarity of detail; they represent a lasting achievement.

The sensuous human form-elegant and eye-catching-is the dominant feature of premodern Indian art. From the powerful god Shiva, greatest of all yogis and most beautiful of all beings, to stone dancers twisting along temple walls, the body in Indian art is always richly adorned. "Alankara" (ornament) protects the body and makes it complete and attractive; to be unornamented is to invite misfortune.

In "The Body Adorned," Vidya Dehejia, who has dedicated her career to the study of Indian art, draws on the literature of court poets, the hymns of saints and "acharyas," and verses from inscriptions to illuminate premodern India's unique treatment of the sculpted and painted form. She focuses on the coexistence of sacred and sensuous images within the common boundaries of Buddhist, Jain, and Hindu "sacred spaces," redefining terms like "sacred" and "secular" in relation to Indian architecture. She also considers the paradox of passionate poetry, in which saints praised the sheer bodily beauty of the divine form, and nonsacred Rajput painted manuscripts, which freely inserted gods into the earthly realm of the courts.

By juxtaposing visual and literary sources, Dehejia demonstrates the harmony between the sacred and the profane in classical Indian culture. Her synthesis of art, literature, and cultural materials not only generates an all-inclusive picture of the period but also revolutionizes our understanding of the cultural ethos of premodern India.

Andreas Schluter (1659-1714) was a well-known Baroque sculptor and the architect behind some of Berlin's most famous buildings, from the legendary Amber Room to the City Palace--which is in the midst of a major rebuilding effort. In his role as court sculptor and court architect, Schluter worked under the direction of Frederick I of Prussia, who hoped to position the city through ambitious new art and architectural projects alongside Paris and Rome as a chief artistic center of Europe. The perfect companion for those planning a trip to the city or interested in this particularly rich period of its architectural history, Schluter In Berlin: A City Guide takes readers through all of the architect's most famous works with illustrations and convenient city maps. Each sculpture or building is accompanied by a concise description and a longer essay on the broader historical background of the period. Schluter is the artistic force behind what is now known as Baroque Berlin, and Schluter in Berlin is the first book to offer English-language readers a look at his many contributions to the city.

Gunther Gerlach is widely hailed for having forged a new direction within the long tradition of wood sculpture, with expansive, abstract works that nonetheless remain concerned with form and demonstrate his dedication and deep respect to this living medium.
"Gunther Gerlach: Sculpture and Space" documents Gerlach's work over thirty-five years and offers the first comprehensive overview of his critically acclaimed career. Slender and arranged in groups of varying heights to evoke the human form or painted to mimic the appearance of metal or stone, Gerlach's sculptures are truly three-dimensional and of equal interest from every perspective. The space between the sculptures invites viewers to explore their placement relative to one another, as well as the empty space between them, lending additional layers of meaning to each work as part of the larger installation. In addition to eighty full-color illustrations, the book includes critical texts by art historian Arie Hartog and Yvette Deseyve that reflect on the artist's process and tendency toward experimentation.

Leo Steinberg was one of the most original and daring art historians of the twentieth century, known for taking interpretative risks that challenged the profession by overturning reigning orthodoxies. In essays and lectures that ranged from old masters to contemporary art, he combined scholarly erudition with an eloquent prose that illuminated his subject and a credo that privileged the visual evidence of the image over the literature written about it. His works, sometimes provocative and controversial, remain vital and influential reading. For half a century, Steinberg delved into Michelangelo's work, revealing the symbolic structures underlying the artist's highly charged idiom. This volume of essays and unpublished lectures explicates many of Michelangelo's most celebrated sculptures, applying principles gleaned from long, hard looking. Almost everything Steinberg wrote included passages of old-fashioned formal analysis, but here put to the service of interpretation. He understood that Michelangelo's rendering of figures as well as their gestures and interrelations conveys an emblematic significance masquerading under the guise of naturalism. Michelangelo pushed Renaissance naturalism into the furthest reaches of metaphor, using the language of the body and its actions to express fundamental Christian tenets once expressible only by poets and preachers--or, as Steinberg put it, in Michelangelo's art, "anatomy becomes theology." Michelangelo's Sculpture is the first in a series of volumes of Steinberg's selected writings and unpublished lectures, edited by his longtime associate Sheila Schwartz. The volume also includes a book review debunking psychoanalytic interpretation of the master's work, a lighthearted look at Michelangelo and the medical profession and, finally, the shortest piece Steinberg ever published.

The making of a bronze sculpture is an inherently reproductive process as well as a complex, collaborative endeavour. The studies in this book shed light on the production of important French bronze sculptures, as well as decorative and utilitarian objects, dating between the 16th and 18th century.

Throughout the nineteenth century, hand-painted plaster replicas of historical objects were manufactured for use in museums that sought to bring together all the world's masterpieces under one roof. Among the oldest and largest manufacturers was the Replica Workshop in Berlin, whose supply of plaster casts now comprises more than seven thousand sculptures that continue to be produced for museums and private collections through the use of artistry and workmanship handed down over generations. "Plasterwork Masterpieces" pays tribute to the art of plaster casting through a carefully curated catalog of the workshop's most admired sculptures from art and archaeology, including the "Laocoon Group" and Rodin's famed "The Thinker." Opening an important Berlin institution to the public, the works included here offer a fascinating journey through the various cultures from antiquity to the present.

A study of two exhibitions that took place five years apart in the same building in Brussels city-centre Full House explores two exhibitions that took place five years apart in the same building in Brussels and featured over 300 contemporary art works from the renowned collection of Frederic de Goldschmidt. The first show, Not Really Really, was organized in 2016 in a building that had only been vacated a few months before by a mental health clinic. The works were mostly sculptures made with everyday objects and played with the ambiguity of what the last occupants could have left and what the artists purposefully created. The building then underwent a long renovation, with photos included illustrating this process. The second show, Inaspettatamente (Unexpectedly), then engaged with themes such as order and disorder, time, classification, the artist's process or his/her position in world conflicts using the prism of the famous Arte Povera artist Alighiero Boetti. Curatorial texts and images of the works both in context and in studio allow the reader to discover and appreciate both exhibitions. Distributed for Mercatorfonds Exhibition Schedule: Cloud Seven , Quai du commerce 7 (November 11, 2021-January 30, 2022)

Sculpture has the longest memory of the arts: from the Paleolithic era we find stone carvings and clay figures embedded with human longing. And poets have long been fascinated by the idea of eternity embodied by the monumental temples and fragmented statues of ancient civilizations. From Keats's Grecian urn and Shelley's 'Ozymandias' to contemporary verse about Maya Lin's Vietnam Veterans Memorial and Janet Echelman's windborne hovering nets, the pieces in this collection convert the physical materials of the plastic arts - clay, wood, glass, marble, granite, bronze - into lapidary lines of poetry. Whether the sculptures celebrated here commemorate love or war, objects or apparitions, forms human or divine, they have called forth evocative responses from a wide range of poets, including Homer, Ovid, Shakespeare, Baudelaire, Rilke, Dickinson, Yeats, Auden and Plath. A compendium of dazzling examples of one art form reflecting on another, Poems About Sculpture is a treat for art lovers.

Through her whimsical works made of paper and wire, Berlin-based artist Christina von Bitter reenvisions houses, musical instruments, items of dress, and other everyday objects as ambiguous and poetic entities. Released of their physical capacities, the delicate skins left behind by these objects seem almost to defy gravity. Ranging in size from relatively modest to more than twenty feet tall, the featherweight sculptures allow for the effortless passage of both light and air. Beautifully illustrated, this volume offers the first comprehensive overview of Bitter's artistic career to date. Spanning fifteen years, the paperworks pictured provide insight into her experimental approach, the multifaceted nature of her work, and her expansive interpretation of three-dimensionality.

Renowned American textile artist and sculptor Gyoengy Laky (b. 1944) was once described as a 'wood whisperer'. Her highly individual, puzzle-like assemblages of timber and textiles helped to significantly propel the growth of the contemporary fiber-arts movement. Laky's art traverses an extraordinary personal story: Born amid the bombings of World War II, she escaped from post-war, Soviet-dominated Hungary; was sponsored by a family in Ohio, went to grade school in Oklahoma, and went on to study at the University of California, Berkeley. She followed this by founding the Fiberworks Center for Textile Arts in the 1970s and fostering innovations as a professor at the University of California, Davis. This book provides insight into her studio practice, activism, and teaching philosophy, which champions sustainable art and design, original thinking, and the value of the unexpected.