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18515 statues on this site
(7282 in The Netherlands and 11233 in other countries)
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Why this website?
For the Netherlands we have a website Mens & Dier in Steen & Brons (People and Animals in Stone and Bronze). We have the intention to make that site as complete as possible. Our basis is a research in literature and internet for sculptures, and with that information we travel around the Netherlands and make photos of every relevant sculpture we see.
We are so used to make photos of sculptures, that we 'have to do' the same during our trips in other countries, and so we made this website Statues Hither & Thither. The main difference with the Dutch site is however that there is no systematic research and we have absolutely no intention to be complete. If we go to a region, we do some research which sculptures there are.
The indexes for places, sculptors, subjects and producers are for both sites, but the pages for the Dutch site are in Dutch, the rest is in English.
Enjoy!
Observations
With 18515 items on this site it is possible to make some observations about the characteristics in the different countries. We photograph all three-dimensional sculptures and reliefs showing human beings or animals. We can roughly categorize these sculptures in four groups:
- Commemorative: depicting famous people or events, there are three sub-categories:
- famous people in the form of equestrian statues, statues, busts or relief portraits on plaques.
- war memorials, often with soldiers or allegorical figures.
- events, usually in the form of reliefs
- Religious: Statues of saints.
- Folkloristic: illustrating old local occupations, customs, myths, fairy tales, legends, etc.
- Decorative:, depicting just human beings or animals without any other meaning that just being beautiful.
In the Netherlands all categories are found, although the 1st category is the smallest. Saint's statues are found only in the Roman-Catholic regions. Folkloristic and decoratieve sculptures are simple and small, usually one figure, sometimes two and very seldom three or more.
- Denmark, Sweden and Finland show more or less the same situation as in the Netherlands, although saints' statues almost not exist.
- Germany, of commemorative and folkloristic sculptures almost equal numbers are found, saints' statues are found only in the Roman Catholic regions and decorative sculptures are quite rare; folkloristic sculptures are often with multiple figures and with a fountain.
- Spain - Gran Canaria, commemorative, folkloristic and religious statues are abundant; the decorative statues much less.
- France, Great Britain, Belgium, the Baltic States and Madeira, we found almost exclusive commemorative sculptures, and saints' statues. Especially in France a great number of war memorials.
- Russia, we visited only Moscow, from the 226 sculptures we photographed, 196 belong to the first category (1a), the few others belong to the folkloristic category.
