CategoriesMedium and Techniques
Intricately Sculpted
Sculpture and carving dense with fine detail, from boxwood miniatures and ivory puzzle balls to wire, paper and thread works.
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About
Some sculpture rewards the closest possible look, packing detail into a small space or dissolving mass into lace-like complexity.
Around 1500 Netherlandish carvers hollowed boxwood prayer beads small enough to hold in a closed hand and filled them with crowded biblical scenes. Benvenuto Cellini made an elaborate gold and enamel Salt Cellar (1540–43) for Francis I, and Grinling Gibbons carved limewood into garlands of flowers and fruit so fine they seem to tremble. Carvers in Guangzhou turned ivory into nested openwork spheres, each revolving freely inside the next.
Modern makers bring the same concentration to new materials. Ruth Asawa looped wire into hanging forms of interlocking lobes, Bodys Isek Kingelez built fantastical model cities from card, paper and plastic, and Takahiro Iwasaki raises tiny cranes and pylons from threads pulled out of towels. Look for undercutting, piercing and detail that keeps changing with every step closer.
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