Notable are the Akhenaten, Amarna Period statuary found at Akhetaten. Rough block forms of unfinished statuary are known and are in museums. This stone takes on a beautiful black appearance when polished. īasalt columns, being even harder than the granite, are less frequently carved. It is the most durable of sculptural stones and, correspondingly, an extremely difficult stone to work. The hardest stone frequently carved is granite, at about 8 on the Mohs scale. It is available in a wide variety of colors, from white through pink and red to grey and black. Marble has been the preferred stone for sculptors in the European tradition ever since the time of classical Greece. Marble, travertine, and onyx are at about 6 on the Mohs scale. The harder serpentines can also reach 4 on the Mohs scale. Limestone comes in a popular oolitic variety, about twice as hard as alabaster, that is excellent for carving. Limestone and sandstone, at about 4 on the Mohs scale, are the only sedimentary stones commonly carved. Alabaster, in particular, has long been cherished for its translucence. Soapstone, with a Mohs hardness of about 2, is an easily worked stone, commonly used by beginning students of stone carving.Īlabaster and softer kinds of serpentine, all about 3 on the Mohs scale, are more durable than soapstone. Types of stone used in carved sculptures But for most of human history, sculptors used a hammer and chisel as the basic tools for carving stone. The earliest cultures used abrasive techniques, and modern technology employs pneumatic hammers and other devices. Later cultures devised animal, human-animal and abstract forms in stone. Prehistoric sculptures were usually human forms, such as the Venus of Willendorf and the faceless statues of the Cycladic cultures of ancient Greece. Engraved gems are small carved gems, including cameos, originally used as seal rings.īoundary wall featuring a dry stone sculpture, in the Forest of Dean, Gloucestershire, UK Ancient Egyptian triple portrait in greywacke, a very hard sandstone that takes a fine polishĬarving stone into sculpture is an activity older than civilization itself, beginning perhaps with incised images on cave walls. Alabaster or mineral gypsum is a soft mineral that is easy to carve for smaller works and still relatively durable. Hardstone carving is the carving for artistic purposes of semi-precious stones such as jade, agate, onyx, rock crystal, sard or carnelian, and a general term for an object made in this way. Historically, much of these types were painted, usually after a thin coat of plaster was applied. Monumental sculpture covers large works, and architectural sculpture, which is attached to buildings. Rock reliefs, carved into "living" rock, are a more advanced stage of this. Petroglyphs (also called rock engravings) are perhaps the earliest form: images created by removing part of a rock surface which remains in situ, by incising, pecking, carving, and abrading. Unakoti group of rock reliefs of Shiva, Tripura, India.
Often, as in Indian sculpture, stone is the only material in which ancient monumental sculpture has survived (along with smaller terracottas), although there was almost certainly more wooden sculpture created at the time. Owing to the permanence of the material, evidence can be found that even the earliest societies indulged in some form of stonework, though not all areas of the world have such abundance of good stone for carving as Egypt, Persia(Iran), Greece, Central America, India and most of Europe. Stone carving includes a number of techniques where pieces of rough natural stone are shaped by the controlled removal of stone. Stone is more durable than most alternative materials, making it especially important in architectural sculpture on the outside of buildings. Carved stone human figures, known as Moai, on Easter IslandĪ stone sculpture is an object made of stone which has been shaped, usually by carving, or assembled to form a visually interesting three-dimensional shape.
For the process of stone sculpture, see Stone carving. This article is about visually interesting objects made from stone.
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