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Until modernity, the word ‘sculpture’ was used to denote mimetic representations of the human form. From modernity on this term was extended to include new and unusual works that often do not share obvious features with traditional sculpture or even with what we know as art. This thesis is placed in the chronological frame of modern art and examines the meaning and truth of modern sculpture and the ways it is to be understood as a work of art. The thesis is separated into three parts. The first and introductory part explores the way modern sculpture has developed and redefined its status and meaning in the history of art from Rodin until Duchamp and the movements of found art and conceptual art. The aim of the first part is to specify the issue of perception and the function of phenomenology in the understanding of modern sculpture. The second and third parts aim to specify the validity of modern sculpture as art, considering particularly Heidegger’s thinking on the nature of art and the truth of art in the postreligious age of modernity. Specifically, the second part examines Heidegger’s position on the meaning of art after the ‘death of art’ and moreover the place of sculpture in modernity focusing on the theme of homelessness in Rodin’s and Giacometti’s sculpture. The third part examines more closely the way abstract art and specifically the work of Barnett Newman could be seen as a truth revealing, following Heidegger’s criticism of the metaphysics of symbolic and representational art. The thesis argues that the validity of modern sculpture and generally modern art lies in its acknowledgement or, in Heidegger terms, thinking of the homelessness of the human being in modernity and the destitution of modernity, and hence in its revealing of the aspect of the truth and being that has been forgotten.

This thesis concerns Parliament Square in the City of Westminster, London. It is situated to the west of the Houses of Parliament (or New Palace at Westminster) and to the north of St. Margaret’s Church and Westminster Abbey. This urban space was first cleared at the start of the nineteenth-century and became a “square” in the 1860s according to designs by Edward Middleton Barry (1830-80). It was replanned by George Grey Wornum (1888-1957) in association with the Festival of Britain (1951). In 1998 Norman Foster and Partners drew up an (as yet) unrealised scheme to pedestrianise the south side closest to the Abbey. From the outset it was intended to erect statues of statesmen (sic) in this locale. The text examines processes of commissioning, execution, inauguration and reaction to memorials in this vicinity. These include: George Canning (Richard Westmacott, 1832), Richard I (Carlo Marochetti, 1851-66), Sir Robert Peel (Marochetti, 1853-67; Matthew Noble, 1876), Thomas Fowell Buxton (Samuel Sanders Teulon, 1865), fourteenth Earl of Derby (Matthew Noble, 1874), third Viscount Palmerston (Thomas Woolner, 1876), Benjamin Disraeli (Mario Raggi, 1883), Oliver Cromwell (William Hamo Thornycroft, 1899), Abraham Lincoln (Augustus Saint-Gaudens, 1887/1920), Emmeline Pankhurst (Arthur George Walker, 1930), Jan Christian Smuts (Jacob Epstein, 1956) and Winston Churchill (Ivor Roberts-Jones, 1973) as well as possible future commemorations to David Lloyd George and Margaret Thatcher. Parliament Square has consistently been characterised as a “sacred”, memory-laden site. It is analogous to a public park. In the thesis it is envisioned as a ‘stage at the theatre of state’ and dramatic moments of authorized celebration and unsanctioned behaviour are narrated throughout the text. Occasions of official rite and ritual are accordingly paralleled by irreverent irruptions, concluding with the ‘Reclaim the Streets’ protests of 1 May 2000.

The intention of this study is not to present the technique as a new one in the realm of sculpture, but rather to investigate the various ways in which cement is being employed in the sculptural form and to point out its prominent use as well as the reasons for its popularity in Mexico.

This research was a practical investigation into the simultaneous exposure of the interior and exterior of sculptural form. Opaque materials were used to examine the apparent opposition between the terms 'interior' and 'exterior' within a sculptural context. The research was divided into five sections: I first carried out a survey of selected sculpture produced over the last century that had been specifically concerned with interior and exterior. There then followed an introduction to my studio-based work that located my area of research within the context of this survey. The last three sections were in the form of a diary and recorded my studio practice. In the first section of the studio diary small-scale studies, using planar and volumetric materials, were made and resulted in establishing a taxonomy that provided a structure for further investigation. The taxonomy covered six categories, each with sub-categories, such as the moment of transition between the interior and exterior achieved through the manipulation of surface; the influence of implied rotation that investigated the effect of symmetry; and the role of stratification and correlation, which introduced space into the studies and sculptures. I concluded from the first section of the studio diary that the division of interior and exterior was almost exclusively concerned with 'edge' or 'comer', but became more ambiguous when a continuous surface was introduced. In the next section of the studio diary radiography provided an opportunity to see hidden information and simultaneous views that could not normally be seen within an opaque form. The two-dimensional radiograph revealed a continuation of line from exterior to interior, which I extended into three-dimensions resulting in line becoming surface. In the final section of the research the transition between interior and exterior became ambiguous as a result of using a curved continuous surface. Combining the investigations into the significance of surface, space and symmetry resulted in full-scale sculptures in which the exposure of the interior and the exterior of the forms were in equilibrium and simultaneous.

The research explores Donald Judd's concept of Specific Objects, and how the notion of singular qualities, so essential to the concept, can be extended through the practice of sculpture. According to Judd, unity can only be achieved in sculpture when its form is specific and has only one quality. There must therefore be no apparent parts, no hierarchy and, therefore no relationships of parts. In addition, Specific Objects rejects illusion. The sculptor Robert Morris further defined singular qualities as those which predominantly distinguish 'good form', thereby positioning it within the syntax of Gestalt psychology. Significant though Judd's sculptures are, few seem to conform to his definition of Specific Objects because through his use of orthogonal geometry and contrast of materials, many of his sculptures do indeed appear not only to be composed of parts, but actually rely on the relationships between the parts. In addition, the contrast of opaque and transparent surfaces, inevitably leads to illusion. Rather than follow Judd's use of orthogonal geometries from parts of differing materials and colours, this research has investigated the potential of circular geometry to create form of sculptural significance within Judd's strict definition of Specific Objects. Key to this research has been what Rosalind Krauss described as the deflection of geometry, of which there are two types: one is based on actual variations in physical geometry and the second results from the illusory qualities of materials and surface finishes. The studio investigations sought to ascertain to what extent the 'deflection of geometry'can expand, but equally as importantly, maintain the viability of Judd's concept. In other words, the challenge was to extend the possible range of geometries that posses the singular qualities associated with Specific Objects; and in so doing provide an alternative response to the dilemma posed by the concept; how to make unified forms with variation and sculptural significance. The studio investigations were project based. Each project was directed by its aims and the resulting studies evaluated through criteria in which unity and singular qualities were fundamental. A reductive approach to studio investigation led to two forms that conclude the research. The unified geometry of the first is elliptical, although visual tension derives from the rotation of the internal ellipse relative to its external counterpart, whereas the second form contains the implied division of an internal figure of eight derivative within an elliptical exterior. Both forms were cast in translucent resins to combine illusory and physical deflections of their geometry. By so doing, they expand Judd's concept, by demonstrating the potential for implied duality and perceived variance to exist within a singular, unified, and specific form.

Contemporary British artist Rachel Whiteread is celebrated for her ability to cast everyday objects that force the viewer to think about the spaces they typically ignore. House, one of Whiteread’s most well known and written about sculptures was created in 1993. House considered issues of memory in contemporary London, specifically parts of London that are experiencing drastic amounts of change. Current scholars understand House as a memorial, and while this thesis agrees with this interpretation, it also considers House as part of a group memorial with Whiteread’s other sculptural works created before and in 1993. This thesis begins by contextualizing Whiteread’s artistic practice in current scholarship and argues for further evaluation of House. After a thorough examination of the creation, destruction, and reception of House, I analyze current scholarship on the sculpture and consider the similar themes through Whiteread’s early work to prove their ability to act as a group memorial.

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This thesis examines a group of terracotta sculptures attributed to an artist known as the Master of the Unruly Children. The name was coined by Wilhelm von Bode, on the occasion of his first grouping seven works in Berlin and London. Due to the distinctive characteristics of his work, this personality has become a mainstay of scholarship in Renaissance sculpture. Chapter One examines the historiography in connoisseurship from the late nineteenth century to the present and explores the idea of the scholarly “construction” of artistic identity. Repeated attempts to establish historical identities for our Master have resulted in the unique characteristics of our corpus remaining undefined, and the context in which the sculptures were produced inadequately established. Chapter Two surveys the Florentine tradition and highlights a practice of copying that is evident in the corpus and indicative of common workshop production. New classifications into which the corpus (Appendix I) is divided are proposed. Despite the singularity of subject matter associated with our Master an analysis of the iconography of the sculptures has never been carried out. Chapter three connects the works of our Master to St. Bernard of Clairvaux, the humanist revival of antiquity, debates on the Church, notions of Charity, and the politics of Florence.

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