# Why are bronze statues of celebrities so horrible? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [August 11, 2023, 6:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-bronze-statues-of-celebrities-so-horrible/988416 "2023-08-11T18:09:37Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 7
**Author:** ![Son\_of\_a\_Rich](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/son_of_a_rich/32/5439_2.png) [@Son\_of\_a\_Rich](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Son_of_a_Rich)\ **Post date:** [August 18, 2025, 3:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-bronze-statues-of-celebrities-so-horrible/988416/121 "2025-08-18T03:33:14Z")
They should have given him four fingers to complete the cartoon character look. ---
**Author:** ![Slithy\_Tove](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slithy_tove/32/18248_2.png) [@Slithy\_Tove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slithy_Tove)\ **Post date:** [August 18, 2025, 1:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-bronze-statues-of-celebrities-so-horrible/988416/122 "2025-08-18T13:32:46Z")
Michelangelo’s David is disproportionate; the head, upper torso and hands enlarged to compensate for the viewer’s perspective at the base of the pedestal. The MLK may have been an attempt at that. Modern sculptors, with AI imaging, CNC cutting, 3-D printing, etc, should be able to create anything they can imagine ---
**Author:** ![muldoonthief](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/muldoonthief/32/3188_2.png) [@muldoonthief](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/muldoonthief)\ **Post date:** [August 18, 2025, 1:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-bronze-statues-of-celebrities-so-horrible/988416/123 "2025-08-18T13:40:31Z")
If you can’t make it to Paris, the [Rodin Museum in Philadelphia](https://rodinmuseum.org/) is excellent as well, though much smaller. ---
**Author:** ![garygnu](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/garygnu/32/2924_2.png) [@garygnu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/garygnu)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2025, 1:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-bronze-statues-of-celebrities-so-horrible/988416/124 "2025-08-20T01:01:57Z")
San Francisco’s deYoung / Legion of Honor° museum and Stanford University reach have somewhere around 90 Rodins each. °: or whatever is called now. ---
**Author:** ![needscoffee](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/needscoffee/32/1076_2.png) [@needscoffee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/needscoffee)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2025, 1:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-bronze-statues-of-celebrities-so-horrible/988416/125 "2025-08-20T01:37:21Z")
> [@garygnu](#): > > Stanford University reach have somewhere around 90 Rodins each. I really enjoyed the Stanford Rodin Sculpture Garden and all the works in the Cantor Arts Center. We had a wonderful docent who spent 15 minutes explaining The Gates of Hell. ---
**Author:** ![Johanna](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johanna/32/8318_2.png) [@Johanna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johanna)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2025, 2:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-bronze-statues-of-celebrities-so-horrible/988416/126 "2025-08-22T02:33:11Z")
Speaking of horror in bronze, don’t forget the original-cast _Thinker_ at the Cleveland Museum of Art. He had his legs blown off by a bomb planted by the Weather Underground in March 1970. The museum set him back up without repairing him, where he thinks to this day. > **[The Thinker - Cleveland’s Philosopher King | Cleveland Historical](https://clevelandhistorical.org/items/show/575)** > > Wounded but forever pensive, The Thinker graces the Cleveland Museum of Art’s original main entrance. In 2017 he quietly celebrated the 110th anniversary of his casting and the 100th anniversary of his installation in Cleveland. In 2020 he’ll... ---
**Author:** ![Measure\_for\_Measure](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/measure_for_measure/32/557_2.png) [@Measure\_for\_Measure](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Measure_for_Measure)\ **Post date:** [August 25, 2025, 2:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-bronze-statues-of-celebrities-so-horrible/988416/127 "2025-08-25T02:51:35Z")
Article on the bombing of _The Thinker_. The Weather Underground typically proclaimed their bombings: this one was anonymous. A message was left on the platform: “Off the ruling class". > It could have been the Weather Underground, or an ally, or a copycat. Over the years, occasional rumors would spring up, vague and usually anonymous claims of knowing who lit the fuse that cold Tuesday morning. One of the more interesting confessions came in the form of an essay, published anonymously in a 2017 issue of the magazine _Cabinet_. Though the author does not explicitly claim membership with the Weather Underground, the tone of the recollections fit. > “And so there was a mood, among some,” writes the anonymous author, “that to bomb _The Thinker_ was not simply to blow up the grim figure of surveillant white patriarchy, but actually to blow up thought itself—as the perennial antithesis of action.” So I guess the bomber was a performance artist. I regret they never attempted a lengthy prison work. Not their oeuvre. > **[On Bellows and Rodin: Stag Fights, Explosions, and Spectatorship - Cleveland...](https://clereviewofbooks.com/on-bellows-and-rodin-stag-fights-explosions-and-spectatorship/)** > > We are, in both cases, witness to something we ought not to see. In the moment, we are standing where we ought not to stand. In the trespass and the violence, we are the viewers and the participants. ---
**Author:** ![Alessan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alessan/32/465_2.png) [@Alessan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alessan)\ **Post date:** [August 25, 2025, 7:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-bronze-statues-of-celebrities-so-horrible/988416/128 "2025-08-25T07:26:19Z")
I’m not buying it. Railing against the “Patriarchy” is 2017 thinking, not 1970. The Weathermen especially did not have a good track record regarding women’s rights and liberation, to say the least. Their problem was not that men were in charge, but that the _wrong_ men were in charge. ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [August 25, 2025, 1:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-bronze-statues-of-celebrities-so-horrible/988416/129 "2025-08-25T13:34:46Z")
It’s not a statue, and it’s not of a celebrity, but I DO think it’s ugly, and I didn’t want to start a new thread. Every time I see the FIFA World cup Trophy I have to ask what they hell it’s supposed to be. According to the Wikipedia page, it’s two human figures holding up a globe. But they’re really vague and abstract. I swear that every time I see it it reminds me of an Alien Lizard People hand holding up the globe. Kinda like this: [https://www.vectorstock.com/royalty-free-vector/hand-aliens-holds-earth-vector-31313686](https://www.vectorstock.com/royalty-free-vector/hand-aliens-holds-earth-vector-31313686) [https://www.vectorstock.com/royalty-free-vector/hand-aliens-holds-earth-vector-31313686](https://www.vectorstock.com/royalty-free-vector/hand-aliens-holds-earth-vector-31313686)[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bkRS\_ihyX2g](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bkRS_ihyX2g) ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [August 25, 2025, 1:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-bronze-statues-of-celebrities-so-horrible/988416/130 "2025-08-25T13:49:42Z")
> [@ISiddiqui](#): > > I thought the bronze statues of the Fonz and Oprah looked very good. What’s your issue with those? That Fonz statue looks like it should be the threat in a sci-fi movie. ---
**Author:** ![aceplace57](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aceplace57/32/3500_2.png) [@aceplace57](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aceplace57)\ **Post date:** [August 25, 2025, 3:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-bronze-statues-of-celebrities-so-horrible/988416/131 "2025-08-25T15:57:30Z")
Hank Aaron at the Hall of Fame looks good. It’s protected from the weather. That protects the fine facial details. [![](https://external-content.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=https%3A%2F%2Fbaseballhall.org%2Fsites%2Fdefault%2Ffiles%2Finline-images%2FBehrends_And_Aaron_Vertical.jpg&f=1&ipt=bd56b1ad3151e3270f981f6a2e2e52623b79ac7225e68d401a63b96cb54d92dc) ](https://external-content.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=https%3A%2F%2Fbaseballhall.org%2Fsites%2Fdefault%2Ffiles%2Finline-images%2FBehrends_And_Aaron_Vertical.jpg&f=1&ipt=bd56b1ad3151e3270f981f6a2e2e52623b79ac7225e68d401a63b96cb54d92dc) ---
**Author:** ![Frodo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/frodo/32/302_2.png) [@Frodo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frodo)\ **Post date:** [August 25, 2025, 4:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-bronze-statues-of-celebrities-so-horrible/988416/132 "2025-08-25T16:02:18Z")
Please kindly stop maligning the objectively most beautiful object in the entire multiverse. ---
**Author:** ![Measure\_for\_Measure](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/measure_for_measure/32/557_2.png) [@Measure\_for\_Measure](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Measure_for_Measure)\ **Post date:** [August 25, 2025, 4:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-bronze-statues-of-celebrities-so-horrible/988416/133 "2025-08-25T16:36:42Z")
I found the article with the Rodin bomber confession online: from their twitter-X handle, “Cabinet is a quarterly magazine of arts and culture that believes curiosity is the very basis of ethics.” Ok, it’s an obscure art and culture magazine. The author retains moments of clarity and delusion. He seems to agree with @Alessan in part: > But despite the good intentions and the hard-won insights, we failed. And we failed ugly. One of the ironies? Most of us turned out to be righteously violent white men, enmeshed in delusional fantasies of our own transcending grandeur. We treated the women like shit, and we condescended to our black brothers. But that was the least of it, frankly. I couldn’t find a short quote that summarizes the article. The group comes off to me as an insular community of violent sophomoric lunkhead English majors; at any rate the author has his regrets. > Did we know anything about the sculpture itself? Of course. Yes. We were not ignorant. Our reading was uneven, but we were resourceful. And relentless. The original placement of the figure on the tympanum of the _Gates of Hell_. Yes. We knew about that… > **[Leftovers / I Was Opened | Anonymous](https://www.cabinetmagazine.org/issues/65/anonymous.php)** > > The beauty of what remained > I must nevertheless confess, here, that I fell deeply in love with the object the moment I saw it in the papers the next day, resting in the fetal position at the foot of its own pedestal. This was not something I felt I could discuss with the others—though I know for a fact not one of them ever made another bomb. The whole occasion marked a very real change in our perspective. And it was the beginning of a period of considerable confusion for me, from which I can hardly be said to have emerged. ---
**Author:** ![solost](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/solost/32/11776_2.png) [@solost](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/solost)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2025, 8:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-bronze-statues-of-celebrities-so-horrible/988416/134 "2025-10-01T20:57:54Z")
Now presenting “Why are bronze statues of celebrities so horrible?”, Tina Turner edition: > **[Tina Turner fans furious over unflattering statue: 'Simply the worst'](https://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-15149541/tina-turner-fans-furious-unflattering-statue-simply-worst.html)** > > The music icon - who passed away aged 83 in May 2023 - was the subject of a newly erected statue in her hometown of Brownsville, Tennessee which has left many furious. ---
**Author:** ![EinsteinsHund](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/einsteinshund/32/8400_2.png) [@EinsteinsHund](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EinsteinsHund)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2025, 9:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-bronze-statues-of-celebrities-so-horrible/988416/135 "2025-10-01T21:32:05Z")
The statue per se ain’t that bad, but WTF about the mushroom on her head? ---
**Author:** ![Mops](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mops/32/16494_2.png) [@Mops](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mops)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2025, 9:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-bronze-statues-of-celebrities-so-horrible/988416/136 "2025-10-01T21:42:15Z")
Apart from the fat Tribble on her head, at first glance it looked to me like she sported a goatee. Also she grins diabolically. ---
**Author:** ![EinsteinsHund](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/einsteinshund/32/8400_2.png) [@EinsteinsHund](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EinsteinsHund)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2025, 9:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-bronze-statues-of-celebrities-so-horrible/988416/137 "2025-10-01T21:52:13Z")
> [@Mops](#): > > Apart from the fat Tribble on her head, at first glance it looked to me like she sported a goatee. Now that you mentioned it, I can’t unsee it, but maybe it’s just the lighting and shadows. And of coures she grins diabolically, she’s the freaking Acid Queen! ---
**Author:** ![solost](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/solost/32/11776_2.png) [@solost](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/solost)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2025, 9:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-bronze-statues-of-celebrities-so-horrible/988416/138 "2025-10-02T21:12:34Z")
> [@Mops](#): > > Apart from the fat Tribble on her head Looks more like Cousin It perched on her head, to me. ---
**Author:** ![Tzigone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/839c29/32.png) [@Tzigone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tzigone)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2025, 10:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-bronze-statues-of-celebrities-so-horrible/988416/139 "2025-10-02T22:40:57Z")
Certainly seems to inspired by her 1980s look. Though I’ll agree with it poorly executed. ---
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [October 5, 2025, 3:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-bronze-statues-of-celebrities-so-horrible/988416/140 "2025-10-05T15:05:53Z")
A nice one I just came upon. Chuck Berry in St Louis. [[Album] imgur.com ![](https://i.imgur.com/azo61ik.jpeg?fb "imgur.com") ](https://imgur.com/a/JgLoKeg) [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-bronze-statues-of-celebrities-so-horrible/988416.md?page=6) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-bronze-statues-of-celebrities-so-horrible/988416.md?page=8)