It perhaps should come as no surprise that when Nufocus asked for our favorite artist almost every last person posted a painter... but there are other art forms as well... so let's begin with sculptors.
I hardly know any, and can't say I have a favorite. A gaping hole in my education, no doubt, but somehow, sculpture fails to do much of anything for me.
This is an incredibly hard question (read impossible) to answer, but of the post-1900 sculptors the one who has inspired me consistently is Eduardo Paolozzi.
as sculptors I don't know many, I only remembered works by Michelangelo (whom I loved very much) and a few others, in recent years I like to admire sculpture more and more. as much as painting or drawings sometimes.
So I was raving about the works of MIchelangelo and in recent years I like Bernini as much as he does, I have to look for more of his works but I like the ones I have seen very much, I cannot choose between the two, and I would hate to do it because I find them both extraordinary. .
Then I really like Rodin, so I add him,
then by chance I saw Pietro Torrigiani's sculptures on TV once and I also find his work wonderful,
I have read that, perhaps now he is not so famous for his works but because he broke Michaelangelo's nose, but his sculptures are also very beautiful
I hardly know any, and can't say I have a favorite. A gaping hole in my education, no doubt, but somehow, sculpture fails to do much of anything for me.
Brian took these words right out of my.......
I quite admire Rodin, but not my first choice. Honestly, I'd be torn between Michelangelo an Bernini. IMO each represents the peak achievements in sculpture of their respective eras: Michelangelo as the Renaissance master and Bernini for the Baroque.
The Pietà alone almost assures Michelangelo's place:
Besides being a work of unsurpassed beauty and emotion... completed by an artist still in his 20s, I am always stunned by the masterful manner in which he dealt with a visually challenging subject. There were many "expressionistic" sculptures of the Pietà theme by Gothic German artists:
Struggling to deal with the portrayal of a full-grown male figure laying in the lap of his mother led to images that were ultimately awkward. Michelangelo solved the problem by creating a large pedestal from Mary's voluminous draperies. He also makes Mary quite a bit larger than Christ... and yet also disguises this with her draperies.
Of course you also have the David...
... the Bacchus...
... the Medici tombs... where he first plays with the contrast of finished and unfinished surfaces...
... and the late figures struggling to free themselves from the block of marble:
Michelangelo is a true Renaissance sculptor. His sculptural figures speak of solidity, permanence, and classicism. Bernini is a sculptor of dynamic movement where stone almost melts away before our eyes and becomes not only flesh, but flowing draperies, and even transparent leaves. Bernini is also a sculptor "in the round". Where Michelangelo's sculpture have one "best" point of view, Bernini's demand we walk around his groupings.
IMO Bernini produced two scuptures to rival the David and the Pietà: The Abduction of Persephone (or Proserpina):
And Apollo & Daphne:
Like Michelangelo, Bernini created a good number of other sculpture that while perhaps not equal to these two works would be envied by almost any other sculptor... including the Blessed Ludovica:
There are a good many other sculptors I quite admire.
Benvenuto Cellini:
Giambologna:
Ghiberti:
Maitani:
Giselbertus:
G.M. Berzoni:
Canova:
Clodion:
Carpeau:
I had illusions of being a sculptor... until I took my first sculpture class... and realized I sucked at it. Even as a painter, I think in terms of lines and flat shapes and not sculpturally.
Back while I still held on to illusions of becoming a sculptor I would say that Roding was my favorite artist. I still make sure to see his work at the Hirshhorn whenever I visit Washington:
But what of Degas?
Maillol?
Nadelman?
Or Joseph Cornell?
Honestly, many of the sculpture I most admire are by anonymous or unknown artists:
I've always been partial to the sublime Adams Memorial by Augustus Saint Gaudens.
To my mind this is the finest work of the greatest of all American monumental sculptors in bronze (and America's greatest coin designer). The memorial for Henry Adams' wife Clover, who committed suicide, it is most widely known as Grief, but Saint Gaudens gave it the rather cumbersome title of The Mystery of the Hereafter and The Peace of God that Passeth Understanding. It seems to me that either title could apply. No one knows if the seated figure is male or female; Saint Gaudens wouldn't elaborate.
I think I like musket's little gems of bird sculptures more than any posted above. I'm a birder and I like color. But like others above, I usually pay little attention to sculpture. They impress me with the craftsmanship but.....
BTW, is anyone else having problems going back into text and editing? I get a blue box and it won't let me insert anything. So some words have no spaces between them. It happens on my PC but not my Chromebook.
I like this one, posted above by SLG, but it's more like a painting isn't it.