Bust Sculpture

Bust Sculpture:

A bust sculpture depicts a human head, shoulders and sometimes part of the chest. It is three-dimensional and traditionally it is soported by an stand. Some sculptors have found ways of eliminate the stand covering it with a cape, hair, or simply leaving the head and neck standing on a rod.

The purpose of a bust sculpture is to create a portrait of the individual in sculpture. We have examples of portraits since prehistoric times, passing through egyptian art, greek, roman, etc.

Classical sculpture was forgotten for a thousand years and then revived again during the Italian Renaissance. One of the most important sculptors in the classical revival was Donatello. Many other sculptors such as Michelangelo also made works which can be considered classical. Modern Classicism contrasted in many ways with the classical sculpture of the 19th Century which was characterized by commitments to naturalism (Antoine-Louis Barye) -- the melodramatic (François Rude) sentimentality (Jean Baptiste Carpeaux) -- or a kind of stately grandiosity (Lord Leighton) Several different directions in the classical tradition were taken as the century turned, but the study of the live model and the post-Renaissance tradition was still fundamental to them.