When Sculptures Come Alive (12 Photos vol. 3)

Sculptures with lives of their own

A curled tail or a lowered head can make a sculpture seem alive. These twelve photos catch sculptures resting, climbing, galloping and almost taking flight — from sand and snow to ancient bronze.

More: When Sculptures Come Alive (9 Photos vol. 2)

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🐚 A Small, Safe Place — By Debra Bernier

A sleeping baby curls into the hollow of a piece of driftwood, with a spiral shell beside it.

💡 Artist Fact: Debra Bernier is a Canadian sculptor and the founder of Shaping Spirit Sculptures; her figurative work explores healing, femininity and the human spirit, according to her official biography.

More: Driftwood Sculptures by Debra Bernier

🔗 Follow Debra Bernier on Instagram

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🐂 Just Resting — By Andoni Bastarrika in Zarautz, Spain 🇪🇸

The lowered head, folded legs and loose-looking skin make this bull seem heavy with sleep. Andoni Bastarrika sculpted the sand bull on the seafront promenade in Zarautz, Spain, in 2019.

💡 Nerd Fact: Bastarrika discovered sand sculpting while playing on the beach with his daughters. He then spent two years practicing during the quieter months before feeling ready to share his work, as he recalled in an interview with My Modern Met.

More: Sand Sculptures by Andoni Bastarrika

🔗 Follow Andoni Bastarrika on Instagram

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🐎 Through the Water — By Robert Glen in Irving, Texas, USA 🇺🇸

Flying manes, lifted hooves and real splashes make Robert Glen’s Mustangs of Las Colinas look as though they could gallop straight out of the fountain. The nine bronze horses were installed in 1984.

🔗 Visit Robert Glen’s website

📷 Photo: Carol M. Highsmith / Library of Congress / Wikimedia Commons (public domain photograph).

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🐱 Up the Trees

A whole gang of snow cats has scrambled onto the tree trunks, paws spread and tails curled.

More: Snow Cats Climbing Trees

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🦏 Head Down, Horn Forward — Wara Art Festival in Niigata, Japan 🇯🇵

With its head lowered and feet planted wide, this giant straw rhinoceros looks ready to charge. It was part of the 2017 Wara Art Festival at Uwasekigata Park in Niigata. Students from Musashino Art University and local residents created the festival’s animals together.

💡 Craft Fact: Wara Art uses toba-ami, a traditional straw-weaving technique, to turn loose rice straw into sheets. Local farmers do this weaving. Straw craft once provided winter income when snow prevented farm work; the sculptures give that knowledge a new use.

More: Giant Straw Sculptures at the Wara Art Festival

🔗 Visit Niigata’s Wara Art guide

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🗡️ “The Sentinels” — By Philip Jackson

Three bronze figures stand in the grass, their faces hidden beneath wide, pointed headdresses. Small hands emerge from their robes.

💡 Artist Fact: Philip Jackson deliberately kept working in the classical figurative tradition while much of the art world favored abstraction, according to his official biography.

More: Haunting Sculptures by Philip Jackson

🔗 Visit Philip Jackson’s website

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🦢 A Bench With Personality

Two long necks rise from the seat and turn toward the path. Even empty, this swan-shaped bench looks like a pair of birds keeping an eye on the people passing by.

More: Sculptures With Unique Creativity

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🌊 A Face Among the Shells — By Debra Bernier

Pink and cream shells surround Debra Bernier’s sculpted face and spread across its forehead, cheeks and chin. The closed eyes give it a resting expression against the rough driftwood.

More: Driftwood Sculptures by Debra Bernier

🔗 Follow Debra Bernier on Instagram

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🐷 Waiting for a Snack? — By Marguerite Derricourt in Adelaide, Australia 🇦🇺

That raised snout looks hopeful. With its ears pricked and back legs tucked under it, this pig from A Day Out seems to be waiting for a passerby to offer something worth getting up for.

🔗 Visit Marguerite Derricourt’s website

📷 Photo: Peripitus / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0).

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🕳️ A Moment Alone — By Isaac Cordal in San Cristóbal de las Casas, Mexico 🇲🇽

This tiny suited figure sits at the mouth of a green pipe, head lowered and hands resting on its knees. Photographed in San Cristóbal de las Casas, Mexico, it appears in Isaac Cordal’s 2013 Cement Eclipses archive.

💡 Project Fact: Isaac Cordal’s Cement Eclipses has used miniature, gray-suited figures since 2006 to draw attention to overlooked urban spaces.

More: Isaac Cordal’s 2013 Collection

🔗 Visit Isaac Cordal’s website

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🥊 “Boxer at Rest” — At Palazzo Massimo in Rome, Italy 🇮🇹

The Boxer at Rest has stopped fighting, but his turned head makes the pause feel temporary. His wrapped hands rest heavily on his thighs. The ancient bronze is in the collection of the Museo Nazionale Romano at Palazzo Massimo.

💡 Nerd Fact: The sculptor used copper inlays to pick out cuts on the boxer’s face and drops of blood on his body, as The Metropolitan Museum of Art explains.

📷 Photo: Marie-Lan Nguyen / Wikimedia Commons (public domain).

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🪽 Almost Airborne — By Giambologna in Florence, Italy 🇮🇹

One foot supports the whole rising figure. Giambologna’s Flying Mercury, now in the Bargello museum, lifts an arm and bends a leg behind him as though the next movement would take him off the pedestal.

💡 Nerd Fact: The head beneath Mercury represents a wind god blowing him upward. The Met’s account of Giambologna’s original explains that it was installed as a fountain figure at the Villa Medici in Rome in 1580.

📷 Photo: Yair Haklai / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0).

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