Based on the surviving sketches, correspondence, and reminiscences, his works seem prodigious. He is also among the best-documented artists who lived in the 16th century. Here are some of his famous sculptures:

1. David

This is undoubtedly one of the most famous sculptures in the world. Michelangelo sculpted this masterpiece over the course of three years. He began working on it when he was just 26 years of age. Interestingly, many of the earlier depictions of this Biblical hero show his triumphant side. 

Michelangelo was the first sculptor to portray David in an alert, tense position before his legendary fight with Goliath. This sculpture was originally positioned in 1504 at the Piazza Della Signoria in Florence. It was then moved to Galleria dell’Accademia in 1873. Today, it is displayed in this art museum under a specially-designed skylight.

2. Pieta

Alongside his famous work, David, this 15th-century sculpture is considered one of Michelangelo’s greatest works. It was created originally for the French Cardinal Jean de Bilheres’s funeral tomb. This sculpture shows Virgin Mary holding Jesus Christ’s body after his crucifixion. It was a common theme in Renaissance-era Italy’s funeral monuments. 

During the 18th century, the sculpture was moved to St. Peter’s Basilica. Over the years, this great work of sculpture has suffered considerable damage. A significant part of it occurred in 1972. A mentally disturbed Australian geologist called Lazlo Toth attacked the sculpture with a hammer. He removed the arm of the Virgin Mary at the elbow. Then he knocked off a part of her nose and chipped one of her eyelids.

3. Madonna of Bruges

It was the only Michelangelo sculpture taken out of Italy during the lifetime of this great sculptor. The sculpture was donated to its current home, which is Bruges’ Onze-Lieve-Vrouwekerk. It was bought in 1504 by the Mouscrons, a wealthy cloth merchant family residing in Bruges. 

The sculpture has been removed from the church on two occasions. It was removed during the French Revolutionary Wars and returned in 1815. The Nazi soldiers looted it during the Second World War. This episode has been shown in The Monuments Men, a film released in 2014.

4. Bacchus

It is the first large-scale sculpture of this renowned sculptor. Bacchus is among the few works of Michelangelo that focused on a pagan rather than a Christian subject. It shows the Roman god of wine in an awkward posture after getting intoxicated with the drink. 

Cardinal Raffaele Riario had originally commissioned this statue but was rejected by Michelangelo. In the early 16th century, it was housed in the garden of banker Jacopo Galli’s residence. It has resided at Museo Nazionale del Bargello in Florence since 1871. Today, it is displayed alongside the master sculptor’s other works.

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He turned to sculpture at many of the important junctures of his career. Picasso used a certain medium as a testing ground for his visions. This resulted in some brilliantly crafted masterpieces that challenged the conventional ways in the world of sculpture. 

Some of his works served as a base for the development of Cubism. He incorporated objects that were used in the daily lives of people in his works. Here are the three masterpieces from Pablo Picasso that defied the conventional ways of sculpture:

1. Chicago Picasso

This sculpture was dedicated on the 15th of August, 1967. Located in Daley Plaza in the Chicago Loop, it has a height of 50 feet. Over the years, it has become a well-known landmark in Downtown Chicago. Chicago Picasso was the result of the renowned sculptor’s artistic experiments. 

The sculpture is a dislocation and distortion of form. The basketwork structure connects the minimalist facial contours with massive wing-like structures for hair made of steel. This sculpture was commissioned in 1963 by the architects of the Richard J. Daley Center. Picasso finished a model of the sculpture in 1965 and approved the final model in the following year. 

The overall cost of getting the structure created amounted to $351,959.17, which was paid mostly by the charitable foundations. Initially, the sculpture was met with scorn and ridicule, but it marked the beginning of contemporary art.

2. Head of a Woman, Fernande

Picasso created a series of paintings in 1909, which represented the head and shoulders of Fernande Olivier. She was a French artist and model, who lived with Picasso for seven years. These paintings were highly sculptural in form and provided some hints of early Cubism. 

In autumn that year, he produced a small sculpture that was based on these paintings. In a way, it conformed to the conventional ways of sculpture. He first created a clay model and then produced the sculpted portrait. In the sculpture, the head is executed as a series of flat planes. 

It seems as if the viewer is staring at the muscles that lie beneath a human body’s exterior surface. The sculpture was created by casting the clay in plaster and carving the surface with a knife. The work was then cast in bronze.

3. Guitar

In order to create this excellent piece of sculpture, Picasso used a new technique of assemblage. This was a complete departure from the sculptural tradition of carving or moulding. He created the first version of this sculpture from cardboard in 1912 and later remade it using sheet metal. 

The materials used were very ordinary and entirely different from the traditional sculptural materials. Bronze, wood, and marble were the materials that were used in sculpture traditionally. The early visitors to Picasso’s studio were completely taken aback by his work. 

They couldn’t tell whether it was a painting or a sculpture. For poet Andre Salmon, the effect that the sculpture produce was more important. His work was a radical breakthrough in those times, liberated from the tyranny of genres.

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During this period, artists created sculptures by using a variety of different materials and processes. Here, we’ll take a look at some of the famous sculptors who created some stunning masterpieces:

1. Michelangelo

Among the greatest sculptors of the High Renaissance period was Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni. He is often described as a universal genius, who also excelled in poetry, painting, and engineering. However, besides all these fields that he excelled in, he is renowned widely as a great sculptor. 

After his death, many sculptors tried to imitate his style. This resulted in the rise of ‘Mannerism’, which was a major movement in the world of Western art. Some of his globally renowned works include ‘David’ and ‘Pieta’.

2. Gian Lorenzo Bernini

He is widely recognized for the creation of the Baroque style of sculpture. It made an attempt to capture the dynamic movement of human figures. They were meant to be explored from all angles and were thus displayed centrally. He was a child genius and became known as a prodigy when he was only 8 years of age. Bernini was also hailed as the Michelangelo of his century by some of the powerful patrons. 

He later had a long and illustrious career. During this period, he produced some of the best works in sculpture ever created. Some of his greatest works include ‘Ecstasy of Saint Teresa’, which was created in the mid-17th century.

3. Auguste Rodin

Some of the sculptures created by Auguste Rodin were extremely realistic. They seemed real to such an extent that he was accused of taking a cast from a living model. He turned away from the decorative beauty and the idealism of the Greeks. This meant a major departure from the centuries-old traditions in sculpture. 

He modelled his sculptures of the human body with realism. They displayed emotion through detailed and textured surfaces. During his lifetime, his prominent works were criticized owing to his departure from the predominant traditions of sculpture. 

He still refused to change his style. After some time, he was recognized widely as the greatest artist of his time and was compared to Michelangelo. His work ‘The Thinker’ is among the most famous sculptures that were ever created.

4. Pablo Picasso

He is regarded worldwide as one of the 20th century’s most influential artists. He was one of the pioneers of the art movement called ‘Cubism’. It depicts the subject from various viewpoints for giving it a greater context. He was formally trained in painting, but he experimented a lot with sculpture. 

This gave him the freedom to approach the discipline as a self-taught artist and break the conventional rules. From 1910 to 1914, he created Cubist sculptures and then didn’t create any sculpture in that form for over a decade. He experimented with structures created out of wire in the late 1920s. 

These structures were then transformed into sculptures. During the last stages of his career, he produced coloured sculptures that were made from sheet metal.

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