Bronze sculpture
Bronze is the most popular metal for cast metal sculptures; a cast-metal sculpture of bronze is often called a bronze. Common bronze alloys often have the unusual and very desirable property of expanding slightly just before they set, thus filling the finest details of a mold.
The manufacture of bronzes is highly skilled work, and a number of distinct casting processes may be employed, including lost-wax casting, sandcasting and centrifugal casting. In the lost-wax casting method, the artist starts with a full-sized model of the sculpture, most often a clay model. A mold is made from the clay pattern; a wax is then cast from the mold. The wax is then invested in another kind of mold or shell, which is heated in a kiln until the wax runs out. The investment is then filled with molten bronze.
Bronzes on Wikipedia pages include:
Sculptors
People
- Andrew Browne Cunningham, in Trafalgar Square, London, England.
- George VI of the United Kingdom, at Carlton House Terrace, London, England.
- Horatio Nelson, 1st Viscount Nelson - relief panels of his Victory at Cape St Vincent, and Death.
- A conversation with Oscar Wilde by Maggi Hambling, installed in Adelaide Street, near Trafalgar Square, London in 1998.
- Shepherd and Sheep by Dame Elisabeth Frink Paternoster Square
- Young Dancer by Enzo Plazzotta, on Broad Street, London.
- Temperance, a statue atop a drinking water fountain to the north end of Blackfriars Bridge, London.
- in the National Statuary Hall Collection, United States Capitol, Washington, USA, 55 statues, including
Abstract and Symbolic
Animals
- Charging Bull - by Arturo Di Modica, in Bowling Green park near Wall Street in New York City
- Mustangs at Las Colinas
- Nelson's Column - Sir Edward Landseer's Lions guard the diagonals