Sculptural Features Research Articles

STUDY ON SCULPTURAL ART OF TEN JAINA IMAGES FROM THE ODISHA STATE MUSEUM OF BHUBANESWAR

The aim of present article is to focus on the sculptural features as well as religious significance of the ten Jaina images of the Odisha State Museum, Bhubaneswar. Iconography of ten Jaina Tirthankara images of the Odisha State Museum is a major aspect of the Odishan sculptural art in India. Jainism is one of the oldest religions in the state of Odisha. The earliest Jaina sculptures in Odisha date back to the period before Mauryan/Asokan. From the 6th century B.C. Jainism remained one of the major religions of Kalinga (ancient Odisha) until the first century B.C., when the Kharavela was ruling in the state. It is believed that Jainism continued to be a major religion in the state even after the war of Kalinga (261 B.C.). Jainism co-existed with other religions in the state of Odisha. In fact, Jaina Tirthankara images were made all over Odisha during the early medieval era. Some Jain images are noticed at different places of Odisha. After Kharavela, the artists of Odisha continued to create Jain images until the 11th century C.E. Out of the extant Jaina Tirthankara images of Odisha, some of the Jaina sculptures are found to be kept in Odisha State Museum, Bhubaneswar. Among these preserved Jaina Tirthankara images, ten Jaina Tirthankara images are discussed in this piece of work. The names and discovered sites of the ten Jaina images of the State Museum, Bhubaneswar are viz; 1. Risabhanath of Keonjhar, 2. Risabhanatha of Khajuriapada, 3. Mahavir image of Charampa, 4. Parsvanatha of Sisupalgarh, 5. Shantinatha of Charampa, 6. Risabhanath of Charampa, 7. Risabhanatha of Podasingidi, 8. Ajitanatha of Charampa, 9. Risabhanath of Bhubaneswar and 10. Parsvanatha of Baidyakhia. Sculptural features of the above Jaina Tirthankara images of the Odisha State Museum suggest that these images were made during the time period from the 8th century to 11th century C.E. The presence of these Jaina Tirthankara images gives an idea that Jainism was prevalent in eastern and northern Odisha during the medieval period. Artistic point of view, these Tirthankara images are very important and interesting for study. Hence, the present author has made a modest attempt to highlight the sculptural art as well as religious connotation of the ten Jaina images of the Odisha State Museum, Bhubaneswar. Methodologically, the author has written this article by using both primary and secondary sources.

3D MODELLING AND VIRTUAL REALITY FOR MUSEUM HERITAGE PRESENTATION: CONTEXTUALISATION OF SCULPTURE FROM THE TANG ERA

Abstract. The present research concerns the contextualisation and presentation of eleven small statues from the Tang era dated from the XI and XII centuries CE today housed at the Asian Art Museum in Turin (MAO). A multidisciplinary group with expertise in Asian art, digital representation, and information processing systems, with the support of VR@POLITO and MOD Lab Arch of the Politecnico di Torino is involved in the work. The goal is to present together several Tang-era pottery models not belonging to the same funerary outfit within the spaces of a coeval, philologically compatible hypogeal tomb. With a pronounced storytelling intent, the reconstructive 3D model represents a virtual exhibition project summarizing Tang art’s architectural, pictorial, and sculptural features. The pipeline was developed through photogrammetric acquisition with Structure from Motion (SfM) technology and 3D modeling of the artworks, reconstructive modeling and texturing of a Tang tomb as the ideal space of the statues, and communication through a virtual reality (VR) experience augmented with a set of information.

The Artistic Characteristics of the Sculptures in Shanxi Merchants Courtyard and the Evolution of Cultural Connotation

By comparing and analyzing the sculptures of Jinzhong courtyards, we can distinguish the sculptures of Shanxi Merchants courtyards formed under the backgrounds of patterns, shapes, environments, and cultures in different regions, and understand the relationship between the evolution of Shanxi transplanted texts and the aesthetic decoration of carvings, which can help us understand more In-depth and comprehensive understanding of Jinzhong Shanxi merchant culture. Therefore, focus on the sculptural features of the Jinzhong merchant courtyard, compare the patterns, shapes, environment, culture and other elements, and the background of the Shanxi merchants, and summarize their respective sculpture characteristics, so as to gain insight into the humanistic charm of the Jinzhong merchants.

Analysis on the Style and Evolution of the Sculpture Art in Shanxi Merchants Courtyard

Shanxi merchants' foreign exchanges and family culture have made the sculpture features in Jinzhong area brilliant, and local craftsmen have also continuously absorbed local culture and customs from it, making the aesthetic taste of sculpture diversified and gradually showing differences. Therefore, this article focuses on understanding the relationship between the evolution of Shanxi merchants' ideological, cultural, and economic strength and the aesthetic characteristics of sculptures, so as to analyze the sculpture art culture of Shanxi merchants' courtyards in Jinzhong area more vividly and comprehensively.

The statue of Bruce Lee in the Hong Kong Heritage Museum

Abstract This article presents an analysis of the most recent statue of Bruce Lee displayed in the entrance to the Bruce Lee exhibition at the Hong Kong Heritage Museum. The analysis primarily utilizes O’Toole’s social semiotic framework as outlined in The language of displayed art (1994, 2011) in the tradition of systemic functional linguistics for analyzing the multimodality of sculpture, and provides insights into how the statue represents the kung fu legend Bruce Lee, who created the martial arts discipline of Jeet June Do. The article begins by first analyzing its sculptural features and then interprets these features against the sociocultural context of the city. The paper argues that the cultural background for the representation of Lee in the statue with its unique representational, modal, and compositional features testifies that meanings attributed to visual information in sculpture are to a large degree socially structured and culturally bound. It shows that the location of the statue and its features such as its gaze and torso can be better understood with reference to the political and cultural significance of Lee’s legacies, thereby enhancing our understanding of the social semiotic nature of statues as a means of commemoration- and a significant part of our cultural heritage.

Traditional Ceramic Sculpture Feature Recognition Based on the Machine Learning Algorithm

Aiming at the problems of low recognition accuracy, high line noise, and high time cost of feature recognition in traditional ceramic sculpture modeling feature recognition methods, this paper designed a traditional ceramic sculpture modeling feature recognition method based on the machine learning algorithm. By constructing the sparse representation model of a traditional ceramic sculpture image, the posterior probability of a traditional ceramic sculpture image was determined and Gaussian distribution of pixels in the image was carried out to determine the distribution law of pixels in the image and the super-resolution reconstruction of the traditional ceramic sculpture image was realized. The feature of the line state of a traditional ceramic sculpture image was determined and classified by the kernel classification method. Finally, the machine learning algorithm red BP neural network is introduced to construct the traditional ceramic sculpture modeling feature recognition algorithm and the error threshold is constantly iterated to realize the traditional ceramic sculpture modeling feature recognition. The experimental results show that the recognition algorithm designed in this paper has high accuracy in identifying the traditional ceramic sculpture features, can effectively suppress the line noise, and has a short recognition time overhead, which has a certain feasibility.

DEVELOPMENT OF UZBEK SCULPTURE DURING THE YEARS OF INDEPENDENCE AND NEW TRENDS

The article describes the interpretation of the works of famous Uzbek sculptors, mainly in the field of monumental sculpture and national artistic features of the works created by them during the period of independence. The tendencies of the development of Uzbek sculpture in the direction of realism, the criteria of modern Uzbek sculpture, their artistic and aesthetic features are described

The Study on the Style and Value of Stone Buddha Statue of Hoeamsa Temple in Yangju

This study focus on the characteristics and of the Fragment of Stone Buddha of Hoeamsa Temple(檜巖寺). As is well known, this temple had been developed rebuilding by supporting of the royal family from the late of Korea Dynasty to the early of Joseon Dynasty(朝鮮). The Hoeamsa Temple Site in Yangju(陽州) is believed to have been destroyed in a fire in the late 16th century, and various artifacts have been excavated after several excavations since 1999. This Temple has been excavated a variety of Fragment of Stone Buddha statues. The Buddha statue of Hoeamsa Temple in Yangju has a hole on top of high usnisa(肉髻), and special folds in the left arm and a thick clothing style. It was reflects the sculptural Joseon style modified by the Tibet-Chinese style. This style is very similar to that of Buddha statues produced in the 15th century, supported by the royal family of Joseon. In particular, these statues were believed to have been produced around the first half of the 15th century when the temple was heavily fortified with the support of Prince Hyo-ryeong(孝寧大君). It is also interesting to note that these statues show the sculptural features of the early Joseon Dynasty, reflecting the Tibetan-Chinese sculptures style, compared to those of the Buddhist sculptures in the first half of the 15th century during the year of Yeongrak (1403~1424) and Seondeok (1426~1435), the kings of the Ming Dynasty. This reflects the development of Buddhist sculptures in the early Joseon Dynasty in line with the trend of Buddhist art in East Asia.

A New Species of Angaria Röding, 1798 (Gastropoda: Angariidae) from North-Western Sumbawa, Indonesia

This paper describes a new species of Angaria Röding, 1798 from north-western Sumbawa, Indonesia. In general appearance it resembles some forms of the species Angaria delphinus (Linnaeus, 1758) found in the same area and on neighbouring islands. The new species differs from it in sculptural features and interstitial markings, which it shares with two Vietnamese species, Angaria fratrummonsecourorum Günther, 2013 and Angaria guntheri Thach, 2018.

Bodies Out of Time: Sculpting Queer Poetics and Queering Classical Sculpture in the Poetry of C. P. Cavafy

Two major themes dominate the poetry of the Alexandrian poet, C. P. Cavafy: homosexual desire and Greekness, broadly defined. This paper explores the interconnectivity of these motifs, showing how Cavafy’s poetic queerness is expressed through his relationship with the ancient Greek world, especially Hellenistic Alexandria. I focus on Cavafy’s incorporation of ancient sculpture into his poetry and the ways that sculpture, for Cavafy, is a vehicle for expressing forbidden desires in an acceptable way. In this, I draw on the works of Liana Giannakopoulou on statuary in modern Greek poetry and Dimitris Papanikolaou on Cavafy’s homosexuality and its presentation in the poetry. Sculpture features in around a third of Cavafy’s poems and pervades it in various ways: the inclusion of physical statues as focuses of ecphrastic description, the use of sculptural language and metaphor, and the likening of Cavafy’s beloveds to Greek marbles of the past, to name but three. This article argues that Cavafy utilizes the statuary of the ancient Greek world as raw material, from which he sculpts his modern Greek queerness, variously desiring the statuesque bodies of contemporary Alexandrian youths and constructing eroticized depictions of ancient Greek marbles. The very ontology of queerness is, for Cavafy, ‘created’ using explicitly sculptural metaphors (e.g. the repeated uses of the verb κάνω [‘to make’] in descriptions of ‘those made like me’) and he employs Hellenistic statues as a productive link between his desires and so-called ‘Greek desire’, placing himself within a continuum of queer, Greek men.

Palaeomohria Spores from the Cenomanian in Patagonia, Argentina

We report the first Cenomanian record of Palaeomohria in southern South America. This finding comes from the Mata Amarilla Formation, with outcrops in the Austral-Magallanes Basin, Santa Cruz Province. These spores are described in detail and their affinity within Anemiaceae is discussed. Based on both, the presence of distinctive sculptural features -hollow channeled muri- and the new phylogenetic studies, Palaeomohria is related to Anemia, either Mohria or Anemiorrhiza clades, basal groups within extant Anemiaceae. This new record extends the biostratigraphic range of Palaeomohria to the Cenomanian and increases the taxonomic richness of the Anemiaceae in the Late Cretaceous of Patagonia.

Macrochondrules in Some Chondrites: 1. Structural-Mineralogical Characteristics

The results of structural, mineralogical and chemical study of rare structural units of chondrites, macrochondrules and their fragments, found in five chondrites of different chemical groups and petrological types (Allende CV3, Krymka LL3.1, Saratov L4, "Velyka Balka" L4-5, Château-Renard L6), are given. Most of them are generally similar to ordinary chondrules and previously studied macrochondrules. They have a radial and porphyritic texture, consist of olivine and pyroxene, and are covered by a silicate rim, which is fine-grained in the macrochondrules of unequilibrated chondrites and coarse-grained in equilibrated ones. Only two macrochondrules among studied one’s are extraordinary and indicate specific conditions for their formation in the protoplanetary nebula. The first one, separated directly from the Allende chondrite, is characterized by the presence of a thin amorphous shell with a porous structure and with unambiguous sculpture features of instantaneous melting and solidification of its surface silicate layer. The second one, studied in a polished section of the Krymka meteorite, is characterized by a zonal structure and the presence of graphite grains and possibly bitumen inclusions. According to the SiO2/MgO ratio, its fine-grained silicate rim with rare graphite crystals and possibly bitumen inclusions corresponds to the fine-grained rims of ordinary chondrules, but is different from the carbonaceous material of meteorites.

Design Patent Law’s Identity Crisis

Since its emergence during the industrial revolution nearly two centuries ago, design patent law has suffered from a profound identity crisis. Its drafters modeled the law nearly verbatim on the British copyright regime for surface ornamentation and sculptural features of three-dimensional articles such as textiles and stoves. Courts struggled to interpret protection for “useful” designs against the backdrop of a utility patent regime focused directly on technological inventions. Further complicating design patent’s role, some manufacturers used design patents as a nascent form of trademark protection until federal trademark protection emerged toward the end of the 19th century. In 1902, Congress clarified that design patents were limited to ornamental attributes of articles of manufacture and did not extend to functional attributes. Unfortunately, the Federal Circuit overlooked the legislation and the key regional circuit decisions interpreting it, cementing design patent law’s identity crisis into place. This article traces the origins of the ornamentality/non-functionality doctrine and shows how several early cases using the “dictated solely by utilitarian considerations” phrasing to deny design patent protection were misinterpreted to be the standard for determining whether a design was eligible for design patent protection. These decisions merely explained that designs “dictated solely by utilitarian considerations” were clearly outside of design patent eligibility. They did not mean that designs that only partially affected functionality qualified for design patents. Unfortunately, inattentive and protectionist judicial opinions caused the standard to drift far from these holdings and into direct conflict with the clear language and intent of the 1902 design patent amendments and fundamental, overarching intellectual property law principles reflected in the Supreme Court’s seminal Baker v. Selden decision. This article aims to correct this fundamental misinterpretation of intellectual property law. Part I tells the remarkable story of how the effort to transplant England’s design copyright regime to the United States spawned a confusingly labeled “design patent” regime and examines the confusion wrought by this mislabeled law during the mid to late 19th century. It also reveals a period in which design patent law served as a proto-federal trademark registration system before Congress established federal trademark protection in the late 19th century. Remnants of that dalliance still confusingly resonate in the design patent system today. Part II explores the 1902 amendments, which unequivocally limited design patents to the ornamental features of articles of manufacture and made clear that they did not extend design patent protection to functional elements. Part III traces the emergence and distortion of the ornamentality/non-functionality doctrine. The early decisions clearly grasped the need to exclude functionality from design patents. Unfortunately, later cases misapplied some of the language of those cases, resulting in standards that contradict the 1902 (and 1952) Acts as well as the logic reflected in Baker v. Selden and other Supreme Court cases dealing with the structure of the intellectual property system. Part IV traces the Federal Circuit’s tilting of the ornamentality/non-functionality doctrine toward over-broad protection of functionality within the design patent regime. Part V explores the forces that have led the design patent regime astray. Part VI proposes ways of rectifying design patent law’s wayward drift to restore fidelity to the statutory language and the overarching logic of the intellectual property system.

Structure and distribution of chalky deposits in the Pacific oyster using x-ray computed tomography (CT)

Oysters are unusual among bivalves in that they possess chambers, often filled with soft, chalky calcite, that are irregularly scattered throughout the shell. Because the function of these so-called chalky deposits is still unclear, evaluating the growth and distribution of chalk is important for elucidating the ecological function of this unique shell trait. Specimens of the Pacific oyster Magallana gigas, an oyster well known for chalk expression, were grown in Bodega Harbor, Bodega Bay, CA. At the end of an 11 month growing period, specimens were culled and selected animals were submitted for x-ray computed-tomography imaging. Three-dimensional reconstructions of oyster shells were used to assess the overall distribution of chalk, and also to better understand the relationship between chalk and other structures within the shell. Results indicate that chalky deposits underly sculptural features on the shell exterior, such as external ridges and changes in growth direction, and also that there is a relationship between chalk formation and oyster processes of cementation. Overall, chalk is useful for a cementing lifestyle because it enables morphological plasticity needed to conform to irregular substrates, but also acts as a cheap building material to facilitate rapid growth.

Applying Star Athletica’s Teachings in the Copyright Office

The Copyright Office does not have all the answers about where the lines are drawn between works of applied art and works of artistic craftsmanship. I don’t think the decision and opinion in Star Athletica answered all of the questions that we had. And in many ways it did not answer any of them, and in part made some of the issues more confusing. Because as Jane Ginsburg had said, the dress designs at issue were all filed with the Copyright Office as two-dimensional drawings. Some of them did depict the cheerleader outfit as well. But these were never being claimed as three- dimensional dress designs or anything else. The focus of these was on the applied art and not on the drawings of cheerleader uniforms. Going back for a minute to prior to the Star Athletica decision, the Copyright Office’s prior approach to separability was that the pictorial, graphic, or sculptural feature satisfies the conceptual separability requirement only if the artistic feature and the useful article could both exist side-by-side and be perceived as fully realized separate works; one an artistic work and the other as a useful article. And to us this worked very well for quite some time, to look and see whether there was something that was fully separable as an artistic work—such as a pictorial work or sculptural features that would be separable—but still leaving the useful article intact.

“Courts Have Twisted Themselves into Knots”: U.S. Copyright Protection for Applied Art

In copyright law, the marriage of beauty and utility often proves fraught. Domestic and international lawmakers have struggled to determine whether, and to what extent, copyright should cover works that are both artistic and functional. The U.S. Copyright Act protects a work of applied art “only if, and only to the extent that, its design incorporates pictorial, graphic, or sculptural features that can be identified separately from, and are capable of existing independently of, the utilitarian aspects of the article.” While the policy goal to separate the aesthetic from the functional is clear, courts’ application of the statutory “separability” standard has become so complex and incoherent that the U.S. Supreme Court has agreed to hear an appeal from a case in which the appellate court, echoing sister Circuits, expressed the lament quoted in the title of this Article. The Article will review the genesis and application of the statutory standard, with illustrations from several of the cases, and will offer two conclusions and a legislative proposal. First, the controversy before the Court does not concern the “design of a useful article,” and therefore does not require the Court to resolve the meaning of “separability.” The Varsity Brands case nonetheless reveals the importance of ascertaining whether the contested design is in fact the design of a “useful article.” A pre-existing pictorial, graphic or sculptural work applied to a useful article is not itself a useful article, and courts need not “twist themselves into knots” endeavoring to parse the meaning of the statutory separability standard. Were the Supreme Court to decline to reach separability on the ground that resolution of the Varsity Brands dispute does not in fact require it, some might be disappointed that the Court would fail to tidy the disarray in the lower courts over separability. But the predicate issue—what is the design of a “useful article”—also warrants more attention than lower courts have given it. Thus, were the Court to leave separability to a case that in fact poses that issue, the Court would still contribute to clarifying this area of copyright law. Second, the statutory requirements of separate identifiability and independent existence apply to “features” of the design, not to the entire shape of a useful article; attempts (including those ventured by this Article) to extend separability analysis to the useful article’s form as a whole prove unworkable. Accordingly, rather than continuing to struggle with an intractable statutory copyrightability standard, this Article proposes the enlargement of Title 17’s sui generis design protection regime to cover original designs of most useful articles.

Arquitectura eclesiástica en León en el Altomedievo. Una lectura a través de los materiales y los documentos

El siguiente trabajo se centra en el estudio de un conjunto de edificios religiosos situados en el norte de la Península Ibérica. Estas iglesias tienen unas características constructivas y escultóricas afines, una cronología que comprende los siglos IX y X y son conocidos por la historiografía como “Arquitectura Mozárabe”. Este estudio se encuadra dentro de un proyecto de tesis doctoral, por ello nuestro foco de atención está dirigido a reflexiones teóricas y metodológicas, así como a alguno de los problemas y consideraciones realizadas durante nuestra investigación.

Superposición: literal y fenomenal. La influencia del Anni Albers en el gran almacén de BijenKorf de Marcel Breuer

The article considers the De Bijenkorf department store as a milestone in Marcel Breuer’s career. The shift it involves can only be understood through the discoveries made in surface superimposition by his Bauhaus colleague Anni Albers. Her influence involves her evolution from 1936 onwards, following her first trip to Mexico to gain a first-hand understanding of Mayan textiles. This learning involved the transition from a design based on the structure of the fabric to another more spontaneous one in which figurative motifs were superimposed onto the structural background. Anni Albers’ progress inspired Breuer’s Dutch project. The strategy of surface superimposition in the field of architecture made facades the subject of study. Concerning this issue, there are three main stages in the architect’s career: the first began in the 1940s, and was based on the literal superimposition of sunshades, which finally led to the vibrations of the different planes of glass used; the second was initiated in the 1950s, with the Dutch projects built in stone, and based on the notion of phenomenal superimposition as determinant; and the third was that of the 1960s and 1970s, in which stone gradually gave way to the larger scale of prefabricated concrete, enabling him to play with the project’s sculptural features. The example studied here illustrates the transition from the first to the second stage. It is characterised by planar stratification. Firstly, the main volume was established as a background in gestaltic terms. The restaurant’s long, deep apertures emphasized the volumetric treatment. Secondly, the volume’s external planes were also addressed in superficial terms, not as the surface of the volume in itself, but as a fabric superimposed on it. In turn, this fabric was composed of different layers. The pattern of loophole windows and the texture of the travertine slabs need to be understood as transparent and superimposed. In the latter case, the pattern varied from one facade to the other due to the different shapes of the stone slabs. This enabled the architect to play with distinct vibrations that would be perceived from different distances. The strategy of planar stratification as the result of the quality of phenomenal superimposition enables the building to acquire its characteristic presence. A phenomenon occurs when the different layers blend into one image that alludes to a textile and gives the building its materiality. Solidity and transparency then merge: Sun and Shadow.

Preliminary results from sculpture analysis of the apiculate miospores from the Upper Visean of Kaluga region, Russia [abstract

Preliminary results from sculpture analysis of the apiculate miospores from the Upper Visean of Kaluga region, Russia [abstract

Peter Schultz and Ralf Von den Hoff (eds). Structure, Image, ornament: architectural sculpture in the Greek world

Greek (and Roman) architectural sculpture has frequently suffered reductive treatment from scholars. Either it has been broken up into stand-alone artworks divorced from their original display-contexts and studied only for what they can tell us of the development of style and subject, or it has been treated as ancillary to the building, or, in the case of temples, preparatory to the worshipper’s experience of the statue inside. This is in part a matter of historiography: the removal and display by Grand Tourists of sculptural features such as the Parthenon and Bassai friezes only encourages this kind of looking. It is also in part a matter of logistics: architectural sculpture was always hard to see, and the use of photography to aid its modern study not only separates the sculpture from its setting even further but also magnifies and flattens it, transforming a three-dimensional object into a two-dimensional picture.