This thread about new statues of Mick Jagger and Keith Richards reminded me of the title question, which has been rattling around in my so-called brain for some time.
What is it about bronze statues of famous people that makes them – at best – almost but not quite entirely unlike the people they’re supposed to represent? And at worst, eerily non-human? The statues of the Stones are perfect examples. Here’s Mick with the artist:
Here’s Lucille Ball, as commissioned by her home town (known as “Scary Lucy,” it’s probably the worst example of this particular phenomenon):
Queen Elizabeth:
The Fonz:
Oprah:
Here are some more:
Okay, to be fair, some are not too bad. For instance, this one of Ruth Bader Ginsburg:
But it seems to me that, more often than not, the faces of such sculptures, even if not actually monstrous, still fail to truly capture the features of their source well enough to create recognition. The whole statue may give away the identity through other clues like clothing, gesture, or props. But the face on its own is often unrecognizable without those other hints.
Are there technical reasons? Is this something about the difficulty of working in bronze? I assume most of these are usually actually castings of sculptures made in clay or some other more plastic material. Does the transition to bronze add distortions?
Is it because the artists usually don’t have the subject available to model for them in person, and they have to work from 2D photos or video? (This seems a fairly likely possibility to me.)
Is it artistic? Are the artists trying (and perhaps failing) to capture something other than the famous visage?
Or is it just that there are a bunch of lousy sculptors out there?
As you note, they can make them lifelike. I think it’s explained as “art.” Many artists want to be more creative than simply making something look like it actually looks.
ETA: I’m okay with that. Some work, some don’t. That’s the art world for you.
Here’s what I’m thinking: a lot of municipalities want to hire local artists for stuff like this. That’s a good thing, but it also limits your pool of talent for difficult projects that have to also be accurately representative of a specific individual.
The OP’s Me TV link of 11 celeb bronzes, though it has the Fonz and ‘scary Lucy’ statues that the OP cites, has several other celeb statues that are pretty well done.
My guess is that the minority of badly done statues just garner more attention than the majority of boringly accurate ones.
Also, OP, how can you make a post about bad celeb bronzes and not cite the infamous bust of Christiano Ronaldo?
My WAG is that creating a realistic bronze sculpture of an individual person is a very rare skill. It’s not like drawing a portrait, where you can practice hundreds of times and learn from your mistakes.
Okay, this is about how they look to me. Perhaps others see them differently.
I hope it is just lack of skill because making molds from 3d printing should be able to take care of that problem. Some of these statues are hideous. They could be a lot less than life-like also. These awful statues are very life-like but not resembling the person they are meant to honor at all. Others bear slight resemblance but exaggerate features. We know who these people are of will learn of their lives from a plaque, the statues should portray the person at their best, as if made up and posed in a portrait.
Several aspects I’d guess including the ones listed:
A realistic 3-D sculpture of an actual thing is hard to do with a live model on front of you; harder yet when going by pictures and videos.
Bronze in particular is a tough medium. It reflects and behaves differently with light than clay stone or other materials. How it looks in wax or other pre casting material is not how it looks once cast in bronze.
Uncanny valley. We know what these people look like and getting close but not quite there is … bad. Weird.
It’s because they keep on trying to give them facial expressions.
If you look at Greek or Roman busts, the sculptor would almost always given them the most neutral expression possible, a relaxed face with pursed lips, like this:
Sometimes they’d give them a bit of a smile or a frown, but always very slight and subtle:
And that’s for a good reason: humans are very, very good at reading other humans’ facial expressions. Every single line and detail counts, and we’re very good at noticing something wrong - which means that sculpting facial emotions is very, very hard. If you want your sculpture to express emotion, you better be as good as Michaelangelo or Bernini, otherwise, you’ll end up sculpting is a weirdo making a funny face.
Speaking from someone who knows (second hand) an actual bronze sculptor, these are the two main points. It’s hard work, takes plenty of talent, and the costs of doing it and the comparatively limited demand for more than table-sized works means it gets harder -fast-. Flaws that are hardly noticeable in a small model become garish and uncanny when scaled up.
Of course, I can’t believe we have this thread and NO ONE has mentioned Robocop yet!
But granted, Robocop benefits from the earlier advantages of a very neutral expression and much of the model being angular molded body armor, including much of the head/face.
I have no idea if the busts of Alexander or Caesar I posted above look like anything their subjects. They do, however, look like actual human human beings, which is more than you can say about some of the examples here. Given the choice, I think aesthetics trumps accuracy.
There is a bronze statue of Mr. Rogers in Pittsburgh and i absolutely hate it. I want somebody to take a buffer to the statue and smooth it out so it doesn’t look like Fred just climbed out of a mud wrestling pit.
One recently erected statue I really like [19th C famous person, and probably would now count as a celebrity scientist and influencer now] is Mary Anning, who sold sea shells by the sea shore.
Whether its photographically accurate, I don’t know but its expressing a lot of character in a fairly simple treatment, and also carries lots of references to her story.
