11 Little-Known Facts About Some of the Most Famous Sculptures in the World

Art is a form of human expression that can be represented in many ways, and all of them deserve to be respected and valued. One of them is the sculpture that, through different materials, manages to reproduce things, people, emotions and historical and mythological situations that awaken our sensitivity and our look at the world.

With that in mind, the awesome.club decided to prepare a list of famous sculptures that feature some details that not everyone knows.

This iconic Renaissance piece, created by Michelangelo and located in Florence, Italy, was made with a block of marble that had previously been manipulated by an artist who didn’t do a good job. Although beautiful, it is worth mentioning that the work does not have perfect canonical proportions and, due to a defect in the marble, it has one less muscle on the right side of its back.

This Greek sculpture represents an athlete moments before throwing a discus. Despite the effort that a release like this demands from a person, the sculpted young man’s face seems to show calm and concentration. Experts comment that the work, attributed to the sculptor Myron, captured the Greek ideals of harmony, proportion, rhythm and balance. That is, it seems to show that the caster has found a perfect state of control between mind, body and spirit.

Christ the Redeemer, one of the most famous statues in the world, measuring 38 meters, is located in Rio de Janeiro and has become one of the most important tourist attractions in our country. Interestingly, there is a detail about him that not everyone knows: his left arm measures about 40 centimeters shorter than the right. This was done thinking about the balance of the work; that is, the difference in size of the arms exists so that the sculpture can withstand the strong winds of the region.

The enigmatic sphinx with a human face and a lion’s body is believed to have had colors when it was created. Apparently, the face and body were red and the part covering the head had yellow and blue stripes.

Located in New York, the Statue of Liberty is 93 meters tall, was built in 1886 and has a name that not everyone knows: “Freedom lighting the world”. The work was used as a lighthouse from its construction until 1906. However, as the light power was not enough to guide the boats after sunset, the lighthouse had to be closed.

This piece, found in 1863, has undergone some restoration over time and represents Nice (in Greek, Nike), the Greek goddess of victory. The work was part of the bow of a vessel and served as the inspiration for the logo and name of the sports brand Nike.

This work, located at a depth of 5 meters, is located off the coast of Nassau, in the Bahamas. Installed on the seabed and made with sustainable material, it created a reef that allows marine organisms to grow, which helped keep tourists away from natural reefs. The sculpture makes reference to the Greek myth of Atlas, one of the Titans condemned by Zeus to carry the skies forever; in this case, the sculpture is of a girl who seems to carry the weight of the oceans.

It is a series that Lorenzo Quinn made after witnessing the destruction caused by hurricanes. The artworks show Mother Earth trying to hold on to a planet using just a piece of cloth.

On Easter Island you can find about a thousand statues, and each one can weigh up to 80 tons and measure up to 10 meters. Interestingly, some have large hats that weigh around 13 tons that were placed over the sculptures.

These sculptures are located in Bahia de Santander, Spain, and were created by José Cobo Calderón as a kind of tribute to young people who, at the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th centuries, expected some tourist to throw a coin for them to jump in the water to get it.

The little ones, who swam naked in the waters of the bay, were called “raqueros”, a reference to poor families. Nowadays the word can also be used in a context of “badly spoken person”.

This sculpture by Auguste Rodin, created between 1881 and 1882, received the name “The Poet” and sought to represent the author of the Divine Comedy in front of the gates of hell, which appears in his work. However, the author thought of creating an independent and enlarged sculpture that would show all the creators of the story. Subsequently, his tense muscles and the image of someone very concentrated caused the figure to be interpreted as the representation of philosophy.

It is worth mentioning that there are more than 20 versions of this sculpture in different museums around the world, some enlarged and others with different proportions.

What is your favorite sculpture? And have you ever been lucky enough to visit any of the sculptures we saw above? Tell us in the comments how the experience was.