Voices in Stone

Iconoclasm is in the air. Bitter debates rage in the press, through social media and on the streets around the proper fate of statues of controversial figures, whether slave traders, imperialists or Confederate generals. It is an important question, but discussion has largely been confined to the final act of the lives of statues. Paul Brummell's contention is that statues should be understood through their changing roles during often complex lifetimes. Starting with a discussion of why sponsors and sculptors choose to erect figurative representations of human subjects, the book explores the impact of time on statues, as durable images in marble and bronze outlive the worldviews of their founders, becoming forgotten relics of past regimes or acquiring a toxicity when their subjects are identified as problematic by new generations. On this journey through the lives of statues, Brummell explores such issues as the circumstances under which statues move, talk, and even kill, the role of votive offerings and the vexed question of the rubbing of intimate bronze body parts, examining the stories of statues from ancient history to the present day, from the celebrated beauty of Praxiteles' statue of Aphrodite at Knidos to the Romanian hero likened to a chubby Santa Claus.