A sculptor wields
The chisel, and the stricken marble grows
To beauty.

A sculptor wields
The chisel, and the stricken marble grows
To beauty.

I choose a block of marble and chop off whatever I don't need.

I choose a block of marble and chop off whatever I don't need.

All my life as an artist I have asked myself: What pushes me continually to make sculpture? I have found read more

All my life as an artist I have asked myself: What pushes me continually to make sculpture? I have found the answer. art is an action against death. It is a denial of death.

Then marble, soften'd into life, grew warm.

Then marble, soften'd into life, grew warm.

The Paphian Queen to Cnidos made repair
Across the tide to see her image there:
Then looking read more

The Paphian Queen to Cnidos made repair
Across the tide to see her image there:
Then looking up and round the prospect wide,
When did Praxiteles see me thus? she cried.

And the cold marble leapt to life a God.

And the cold marble leapt to life a God.

A Mercury is not made out of any block of wood.
[Lat., Ex quovis ligno non fit Mercurius.]

A Mercury is not made out of any block of wood.
[Lat., Ex quovis ligno non fit Mercurius.]

In sculpture did ever anybody call the Apollo a fancy piece? Or
say of the Laocoon how it might read more

In sculpture did ever anybody call the Apollo a fancy piece? Or
say of the Laocoon how it might be made difference? A
masterpiece of art has in the mind a fixed place in the chain of
being, as much as a plant or a crystal.

Sculpture is more divine, and more like Nature,
That fashions all her works in high relief,
And read more

Sculpture is more divine, and more like Nature,
That fashions all her works in high relief,
And that is Sculpture. This vast ball, the Earth,
Was moulded out of clay, and baked in fire;
Men, women, and all animals that breathe
Are statues, and not paintings.