10 Best Sculptors of All Time

While the list of great sculptors in the world abounds, a little compilation of some of them is practically going to get the job easier. Here’s a list of 10 best sculptors that are timelessly remembered because of their mouth-gaping works of art.

Lorenzo Ghiberti

An angle of a sensational face
Source: Bio

An angle of a sensational face

The Florentine Italian artist was best noted for his bronze Florence Baptistery doors which Michelangelo have called the Gates of Paradise. His works were established as the Early Renaissance’s major masterpiece. Born in year 1378, his fame started when he won the 1401 tournament for the first set of bronze doors. Lorenzo was a trained sculptor and goldsmith, who was also behind the reliefs for the cathedral in Siena along with three bronze figures for Orsanmichele. Besides, he also made great contribution with his Commentari, a book  deemed as the earliest surviving autobiography that holds momentous writing on art.

Edmonia Lewis

Born on July 4, 1844, Lewis was well-known for exploring themes of religion, indigenous people of the Americas as well as themes about black people. American sculptor Edmonia Lewis was the first ever African-American woman who received and recognition as a sculptor. It was in 1864 that she started as a sculptor and later inspired many abolitionists with her subjects including Colonel Robert Gould Shaw and John Brown. She was also best remembered for creating the gigantic marble sculpture known as The Death of Cleopatra. Her other influential works include The Marriage of Hiawatha, The Freed Woman and Her Child, along with her The Old Arrow Maker and His Daughter.

Michelangelo

“Every block of stone has a statue inside it and it is the task of the sculptor to discover it” – Michelangelo has always seen himself as a sculptor, while achieving great recognition as an architect, poet and painter.  Unquestionably, he is regarded as one of the most prominent figures of the Italian Renaissance. The timeless Pieta statue, which up until now has endure among the most exquisites sculpture, was made by Michelangelo when he was just twenty-five-years-old. Other works such as David, The Madonna of the Stairs along with The Battle of the Centaurs are some of his major works that shaped his name as a sculptor.

Donatello

Donatello and his piercing glance
Source: Wikipedia

Donatello and his piercing glance

Considered as the most influential artist of the early Renaissance, Donatello or  Donato di Niccolò di Betto Bardi gave a massive impact on the early Renaissance art in Florence. As stated by other artists of his time, Donatello’s works exemplify massive expressivity and “a marvelous suggestion of life bursting out of the stone.” He was labeled as an expert in creating marble and bronze sculptures, with some of his notable works including David, St. Mark, Prophet Habakkuk, The Feast of Herod, as well as St. George Tabernacle.

Auguste Rodin

Having a major impact on modern art, Auguste Rodin was a French sculptor renowned for  his controversial The Age of Bronze and The Kiss. Rodin showed a notable ability in modelling intricate and tumultuous surfaces in clay and manifested great ability “to capture the physical and intellectual force of the human subject– and freed sculpture from the repetition of traditional patterns, providing the foundation for greater experimentation in the 20th century.” The Thinker and The Kiss are as of this time, used as powerful symbols of character and human emotion.

Constantin Brâncuși

Constantin Brancusi in suit
Source: Wikipedia

Constantin Brancusi in suit

Known as the “Patriarch of Modern sculpture, Constantin Brancusi was a world-renowned  Romanian sculptor at the same time photographer and painter. He was an eminent figure in the world of sculptor and a pioneer artist of the 20th-century. In his works like that of The Prayer, he aimed to depict his famous belief that “What is real is not the appearance, but the idea, the essence of things. … movements, desires, personalities, connecting hearts and minds to an essential organic.” Some of his remarkable works are Bust of a boy,  Princess X,  Bird in Space, Sleeping Muse and LA Sagesse de la Terre.

Praxiteles

Among the most celebrated Attic Sculptors, Praxiteles was recognized as the son of Cephisodotus, who sculpted the first ever nude female figure during the 4th century BC. Most of Praxiteles’ subjects involved human beings, Aphrodite, Poseidon, Apollos and other deities. His works manifested deep charm and gracefulness, which are evident on his works such as Hermes and Infant Dionysus and the Apollo Sauroktonos.

Gian Lorenzo Bernini

A celebrated Italian genius
Source: Wikipedia

A celebrated Italian genius

During the seventeenth century, the name Gian Lorenzo Bernini was highly acclaimed in the Roman art world. He was the pioneering sculptor of his time and was attributed for the creation of the Baroque style of sculpture. Bernini was extremely skillful in depicting intense narrative and manipulating marble in his works. On top of that, he was considered as a prodigy at the age of eight was even famously recognized as the “Michelangelo of his century” by the potent patrons. An Italian artist born in November 28, 1680, Bernini’s most important works include Ecstasy of Saint Theresa, Apollo and Daphne, David, and The Rape of Proserpina.

Phidias

Noted as the creator of the famous statue of Zeus as well as the goddess Athena Parthenos and Athena Promachos,  Phidias was a  remarkable Greek sculptor who was also Parthenon’s artistic director. Phidias’ sculpture of Zeus at Olympia was hailed among the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World while his statue of the Athena Parthenos was made of ivory and gold. His works involving chryselephantine and bronze were highly celebrated in the ancient times. The Greek artist dedicated his earliest works in celebration of the Greek victory.

Pablo Picasso

A direct, powerful gaze
Source: Shairart

A direct, powerful gaze

Acknowledged as the co-founder of the Cubist movement, and the co-creator of collage as well as the constructed sculpture, Pablo Picasso has explored in different styles. Excelling both in painting and sculpting, his masterpieces has been recognized as one of the most historic sculptures in the world. One of them includes the 1951 bronze statue of Baboon and Young, Woman’s Head (Fernande), She-Goat, the Maquette for Guitar, Chicago Picasso, and the Tête de picador au nez cassé (Head of a Picador with a Broken Nose).