MONUMENTAL SCULPTURE By monumental sculpture is meant that sculpture which is intended to perpetuate the memory of a person or an event. In cluded in this definition are all types of memorials in which sculpture is the important part, even though architecture or mosaic or some other art may play an important part in the composition ; but it is not intended to include that sculpture which forms merely a decorative accessory in a building such as the sculptures in temple pediments, in the portals of a cathedral, or on the piers of a triumphal arch even though these adorn a memorial struc ture. Sculpture of that type will be defined as architectural sculp ture or as decorative sculpture. (See other sections of this article.) In the definition of monumental sculpture we include all public memorials that are sculptural in quality and intended to com memorate historic, literary or scientific events such as military victories, the signing of treaties, the discovery of new lands, or a mechanical invention; all memorials to persons—to statesmen, soldiers, poets, martyrs ; all sculptural monuments intended to decorate a city ; and all funerary sculptures, whether built within the walls of a cathedral or in the open air.
Monumental sculpture, to serve its purpose as memorial, must be permanent, and must clearly express the character of the per son or event that it is meant to honour. Enduring materials, such as bronze or granite, so arranged as to be in perfect equilibrium and so modelled as to minimize the possibility of fractures would seem to be essential to this art ; and it would seem obvious that these modelled forms should be those of men and women and should recall, either by direct representation, by association or by the more subtle emotions which may be evoked by arrangements of mass and line, the qualities or the significance of the thing commemorated. Heroic scale and simplicity, because they lend both dignity and permanence, are the most frequent attributes of monumental sculpture, and that idealization of forms and of attitudes which leads to the elimination of all that is ephemeral or mean is an almost universal characteristic. More than any other form of plastic art, monumental sculpture strives to express those qualities of structural truth, of harmony in mass and movement, which good architecture also embodies. A realistic or pictorial
treatment, although often used for the decoration of memorials, is apt to be less effective for monuments which are intended to illustrate, not accidental or trivial aspects of nature but rather those heroic qualities of the human spirit that attest its enduring greatness. A romantic or symbolic treatment which depends upon knowledge or upon understanding for its appreciation and a purely decorative style which offers only sensual delight, are also unsatis fying in a memorial. That monumental sculpture is best that imposes upon natural human forms the architectural logic of mass and structure.
The desire to leave some record of his sojourn on earth seems to have been instinctive with man from the beginning, and no doubt this instinct is closely associated with his desire to represent the human form in stone or wood. From the earliest ages man seized upon the hardest and most enduring materials in which to carve representations of his own form. With the development of the first civilization, in Egypt, Chaldea, Mexico, these instincts found expression in a wide range of monumental sculptures.