Bronze, (cat. expo. Royal Academy of Art, Londres, sept.-déc. 2012), 2012, 240 p., 260 ill. -

Bronze, long celebrated for its durability and the wide range of effects that it offers, has been prized as an artistic material in many parts of the world throughout the ages. Magnificent bronze sculptures from the ancient times have emerged unscathed after millennia on the sea bed. It is a material that has been used on all scales, from the minute to the monumental. This sumptuous catalogue examines bronze's earliest beginnings in North Africa, the Middle East and China as it transcended tools and weaponry to become a medium of fine art. Expert authors chart the virtuousity of artists in ancient Greece and Rome; developments in Asia and Africa; bronze's great flowering in the European Renaissance and its use in the modern era by artists such as Rodin, Picasso, Brancusi and Bourgeois. A unique testament to the works of art that one medium has inspired, Bronze contains lavish colour plates of over 150 masterworks arranged chronologically to take the reader on a voyage through time, tracing the work of sculptors, casters and chasers through the centuries.