Art and History of Bronze Sculptures

The making of the material known as 'bronze', it is created by the mixing and melting of tin and copper. The reason for the creation of bronze was because the metal of copper is overly soft for many different types of items such as tools, and the metal medium of tin is just highly brittle, and breaks very easily. But when these to metal mediums are combined through the heating and melting process, there would be the very hard metal of bronze.

Not only does bronze make a wonderfully hard metal for tools, coins, shields or Armour, and of course, statues. Bronze not only is uniquely hard forever long lasting statues large and small, but as it ages, with the help of air exposure, there is a greenish brown corrosion that starts to appear over time. This is a welcoming sight for most all bronze statue collectors because of its creative uniqueness of each and every individual piece of bronze artwork.

Bronze was originally used approximately 5,000 years ago, and this was then the beginning of the Bronze Ages within China, Egypt and Greece, and later on during the time period of 1,900 B.C. upon the continent of England. Even from the beginning of the Bronze Age, bronze was recognized for its unique beauty and color, along with it being a metal of strength and performance.

The very first bronze casting has been traced to China around the year of 1,700 B.C., and almost all of these original bronze castings were specifically for the ritual of worshiping the people's ancestors. Most all of these ancestral bronze castings would be engraved with the individual name of the ancestor, and sometimes engravings of the events that were important of the ancestor. These ancestral castings would be kept as extremely special heirlooms of the families that the ancestor belonged to.

During the Bronze Age of ancient Greece, bronze was highly admired for the used of vase production, large and small statues and sculptures, along with battle helmets, money and later on candlesticks, doors for and religious vessels, reliquaries and many other church and cathedral related items.

Later on by the early 1300's, bronze would extensively be used for such things as war cannons and other personal protection during battles. As time went on, the bronze metal would eventually be the material for common in home items such as chandeliers, furniture fittings, ewers and basins.

Source : Ezinearticles