Century Sculpture at www.japanese-home-gardens.com

These significant pti poses have generally been served by sculpture ( considerable size, and there is no doubt that largi ness promotes an effect of impressiveness i sculpture as it does in architecture. This i borne out by the observation that most sculptur which has been made merely to embellish or t delight is definitely under life-size or even of th statuette category. A notable exception to thi rule is found in fountain sculpture from the 16t! century on, where the architectural or arborea setting often requires commensurate scale in tb sculpture.

The 20th Century.—At the very beginning 20th century sculpture was revolutionary, especially in France, where the genius of Rodin hac created new concepts of the nature of sculpture. What the younger artists learned from Rodin was, above all, that the essence of sculpture derives from the relationship of masses to masses, and then from the outlines generated by those masses. Hildebrand w^as also influential in his classicism with its insistence on repose; in his tending to geometrize which led to the simplification—or abstraction—of nature; and in his emphasis on respect for the nature of the materials used for sculpture. In respect for materials, Hildebrand's influence coalesced with more important developments of the same line of thought that had occurred in the fields of architecture and the minor arts, and that had already had effect in painting, particularly in the painting of Eugene Henri Paul Gauguin (1848-1903).

American Sculpture.—Sculpture, recognized as art, did not exist in colonial America due to the prejudice of militant Protestantism against the making of idols. In the 18th century, however, there were anonymous carvers who made ship figureheads, weather vanes, and other objects which are now cherished as examples of folk art. With the birth of the new republic coinciding with a more broadminded concept of religion, there developed a real need for sculpture to commemorate heroism and to embellish monumental buildings. This need was first met by foreigners and self-trained artists.