Käthe Kollwitz, Irish Visual Artists Rights Organisation (IVARO), Dublin, IR/ VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn
© Jannis Kounellis
© Wolfgang Laib
© Berto Lardera, Irish Visual Artists Rights Organisation (IVARO), Dublin, IR/ ADAGP, Paris
© Henri Laurens, Irish Visual Artists Rights Organisation (IVARO), Dublin, IR/ ADAGP, Paris
© Estate of Sol LeWitt, Irish Visual Artists Rights Organisation (IVARO), Dublin, IR
© Estate of Jacques Lipchitz, New York
© Aristide Maillol, Irish Visual Artists Rights Organisation (IVARO), Dublin, IR/ ADAGP, Paris
© Man Ray Trust/ Irish Visual Artists Rights Organisation (IVARO), Dublin, IR/ ADAGP, Paris
© Giacomo Manzù
© Walter de Maria
© Marino Marini, Irish Visual Artists Rights Organisation (IVARO), Dublin, IR/ SIAE, Roma
Art © Marisol Escobar/Licensed by VAGA-DACS, New York, NY
© Étienne Martin, Irish Visual Artists Rights Organisation (IVARO), Dublin, IR/ ADAGP, Paris
© Pierre Masseau, Irish Visual Artists Rights Organisation (IVARO), Dublin, IR/ ADAGP, Paris
© Henri Matisse, Les Héritiers Matisse, Artists Rights Society, New York, USA/ ADAGP, Paris
© Succession H. Matisse, Paris/ Irish Visual Artists Rights Organisation (IVARO), Dublin, IR
© George Minne, Irish Visual Artists Rights Organisation (IVARO), Dublin, IR/ SABAM, Brussels
© Successió Miró, Irish Visual Artists Rights Organisation (IVARO), Dublin, IR/ ADAGP, Paris
© Robert Morris, Irish Visual Artists Rights Organisation (IVARO), Dublin, IR
© Bruce Nauman, Irish Visual Artists Rights Organisation (IVARO), Dublin, IR
© Estate of Louise Nevelson, Irish Visual Artists Rights Organisation (IVARO), Dublin, IR
© Barnett Newman, Irish Visual Artists Rights Organisation (IVARO), Dublin, IR
© The Isamu Noguchi Foundation and Garden Museum, New York/ Irish Visual Artists Rights Organisation (IVARO), Dublin, IR
© Hélio Oiticica
© Georgia O'Keeffe Museum/ Irish Visual Artists Rights Organisation (IVARO), Dublin, IR
© Claes Oldenburg and Coosje van Bruggen, pp. *, **
© Meret Oppenheim, Irish Visual Artists Rights Organisation (IVARO), Dublin, IR/ ProLitteris, Zürich
© Panamarenko
© Gina Pane, Irish Visual Artists Rights Organisation (IVARO), Dublin, IR/ ADAGP, Paris
© Trustees of the Paolozzi Foundation, Licensed by DACS/ Irish Visual Artists Rights Organisation (IVARO), Dublin, IR
© Pino Pascali
© Giuseppe Penone, Irish Visual Artists Rights Organisation (IVARO), Dublin, IR/ ADAGP, Paris
© Antoine Pevsner, Irish Visual Artists Rights Organisation (IVARO), Dublin, IR/ ADAGP, Paris
© Estate of Pablo Picasso/ Irish Visual Artists Rights Organisation (IVARO), Dublin, IR
Art © Robert Rauschenberg/Licensed by VAGA-DACS, New York, NY
© Martial Raysse, Irish Visual Artists Rights Organisation (IVARO), Dublin, IR/ ADAGP, Paris
© Germaine Richier, Irish Visual Artists Rights Organisation (IVARO), Dublin, IR/ ADAGP, Paris
Art © Estate of Alexander Rodchenko/RAO, Moscow/Licensed by VAGA-DACS, New York, NY
© Niki de Saint-Phalle, Irish Visual Artists Rights Organisation (IVARO), Dublin, IR/ ADAGP, Paris
© Alain Séchas, Irish Visual Artists Rights Organisation (IVARO), Dublin, IR/ ADAGP, Paris
Art © The George and Helen Segal Foundation/Licensed by VAGA-DACS, New York, NY
© Richard Serra, Irish Visual Artists Rights Organisation (IVARO), Dublin, IR
Art © Estate of David Smith/Licensed by VAGA-DACS, New York, NY
© Estate of Tony Smith, Irish Visual Artists Rights Organisation (IVARO), Dublin, IR
© Jesús Rafael Soto, Irish Visual Artists Rights Organisation (IVARO), Dublin, IR/ ADAGP, Paris
© Mark di Suvero
© Sophie Taeuber-Arp, Irish Visual Artists Rights Organisation (IVARO), Dublin, IR/ VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn
© Takis, Irish Visual Artists Rights Organisation (IVARO), Dublin, IR/ ADAGP, Paris
© Vladimir Tatlin
© Jean Tinguely, Irish Visual Artists Rights Organisation (IVARO), Dublin, IR/ ADAGP, Paris
© Joaquín Torrès-Garcia, Irish Visual Artists Rights Organisation (IVARO), Dublin, IR/ VEGAP, Madrid
© Leon Underwood
© Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney
© Georges Vantongerloo, Irish Visual Artists Rights Organisation (IVARO), Dublin, IR/ ProLitteris, Zürich
© Alison Wilding
© Jackie Winsor
© Ossip Zadkine, Irish Visual Artists Rights Organisation (IVARO), Dublin, IR/ ADAGP, Paris
© Gilberto Zorio
The works illustrated on pages: figs. 851, 893, 904, and 980 have been reproduced by permission of the Henry Moore Foundation
Introduction
From the beginning, sculpture seems to have held a role beyond that of aesthetics. Indeed, the first statues found give the impression of deliberate crudeness and were probably used during mysterious mystical rituals. Prehistoric or primitive peoples, therefore, leave behind them only small quantities of relics, since the statues were most often made of clay, wood or bone, these silent witnesses of their unrecognised civilisations. Zoomorphic representations develop hand-in-hand with the evolution of settlement; evidence of early domestication. As for anthropomorphic forms, they are mainly women, and may have been objects of worship dedicated to the goddess of fertility (fig. 1). Likewise, while the first sculptures found in Egyptian tombs are often the effigies of the deceased, many of them represent deities, Anubis, Hathor and Isis, the necessary and obligatory last rites required for the journey of the deceased and access to the afterlife. The Egyptians appear to have been the first to develop a concept of idealised and well-proportioned human figures and a narrative tradition in painting and relief sculpture, as well as temple architecture incorporating a variety of sculptural elements.
The ancient Greeks, at first an isolated and provincial people among
