Why Marble For Sculpture

Throughout art history sculptors have experimented with an eclectic range of mediums.
Why marble for sculpture. Even before painting cave walls early humans fashioned shapes from stone. David marble sculpture executed from 1501 to 1504 by the italian renaissance artist michelangelo the statue was commissioned for one of the buttresses of the cathedral of florence and was carved from a block of marble that had been partially blocked out by other sculptors and left outdoors. After michelangelo completed the sculpture the florentine government decided instead to place it in. Typical marble weigh about a half of granite of same size and lot so.
Venus de milo c 130 100 bce marble statue musee du louvre. As bronze always had a significant scrap value very few original bronzes have survived. As in most ancient cultures there were no doubt also traditions of sculpture in wood about which we know very little other than acrolithic sculptures usually large with the head and exposed flesh parts in marble but the clothed parts in wood. See pergamene school of greek sculpture.
From these beginnings artifacts have evolved to their current complexity. The properties of marble and its uses. They are easy to quarry shape and polish compared to other popular stone type of ancient. Hardness and weight are primary reason marble has been used across many civilization.
It is used for its optical properties in cosmetics paint and paper. It is used for its chemical properties in pharmaceuticals and agriculture. While cast bronze carved wood and fired clay have made lasting impressions no material has captivated quite like marble. It is used for its beauty in architecture and sculpture.
Prevalent in ancient and contemporary art alike marble artworks have a prominent place in many major art movements and are among some of the most famous sculptures in the world. Marble is a metamorphic rock composed of recrystallized carbonate minerals most commonly calcite or dolomite marble is typically not foliated although there are exceptions in geology the term marble refers to metamorphosed limestone but its use in stonemasonry more broadly encompasses unmetamorphosed limestone. Both marble and bronze are easy to form and very durable. Sculpture is among the oldest of the arts.
Marble is commonly used for sculpture and as a building material. Sculpture is the branch of the visual arts that operates in three dimensions it is one of the plastic arts durable sculptural processes originally used carving the removal of material and modelling the addition of material as clay in stone metal ceramics wood and other materials but since modernism there has been an almost complete freedom of materials and process.