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Shaping the World
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Leading sculptor Antony Gormley, informed and energised by a lifetime of making, and art critic and historian Martin Gayford, explore the central role of sculpture in the development of human culture from prehistory to the present day.
Leading sculptor Antony Gormley, informed and energised by a lifetime of making, and art critic and historian Martin Gayford, explore the central role of sculpture in the development of human culture from prehistory to the present day.
Sculpture is the universal art. It has been practised by every culture throughout the world and stretches back into the distant past. The first surviving shaped stones may even predate the advent of language. The drive to form stone, clay, wood and metal into shapes evidently runs deep in our psyche and biology. This links the question 'What is sculpture?' to the question 'What is humanity?'
In this wide-ranging book, two complementary voices - one belonging to an artist who looks to Asian and Buddhist traditions as much as to Western sculptural history, the other to a critic and historian - consider how sculpture has been central to the evolution of our potential for thinking and feeling. Sculpture cannot be seen in isolation as an aesthetic pursuit; it is related to humankind's compelling urge to make its mark on the landscape, to build, make pictures, practise religion and develop philosophical thought.
Drawing on examples from thousands of years BCE to now, and from around the globe, the authors treat sculpture as a transnational art form with its own compelling history. They take into account materials and techniques, and consider overarching themes such as space, light and darkness. Above all, they discuss their view of sculpture as a form of physical thinking capable of altering the way people feel and of inviting them to look at sculpture they encounter and more broadly the world around them in a completely different way.
Sculpture is the universal art. It has been practised by every culture throughout the world and stretches back into the distant past. The first surviving shaped stones may even predate the advent of language. The drive to form stone, clay, wood and metal into shapes evidently runs deep in our psyche and biology. This links the question 'What is sculpture?' to the question 'What is humanity?'
In this wide-ranging book, two complementary voices - one belonging to an artist who looks to Asian and Buddhist traditions as much as to Western sculptural history, the other to a critic and historian - consider how sculpture has been central to the evolution of our potential for thinking and feeling. Sculpture cannot be seen in isolation as an aesthetic pursuit; it is related to humankind's compelling urge to make its mark on the landscape, to build, make pictures, practise religion and develop philosophical thought.
Drawing on examples from thousands of years BCE to now, and from around the globe, the authors treat sculpture as a transnational art form with its own compelling history. They take into account materials and techniques, and consider overarching themes such as space, light and darkness. Above all, they discuss their view of sculpture as a form of physical thinking capable of altering the way people feel and of inviting them to look at sculpture they encounter and more broadly the world around them in a completely different way.
Extent: 392 pp
Format: Paperback
Illustrations: Illustrated in colour
Publication date: 2026-12-01
Size: 23.7 x 18.4 cm
ISBN: 9780500299463
Praise for Shaping the World
The sculptor and the art critic have redefined the [art] form
Sunday Times
If you want to rethink your ideas about sculpture, this fascinating book will give you pause for thought on just about every page ... a mighty, lusciously produced tome ... You can lose yourself in just looking at the illustrations
Financial Times
I lost myself in your book - it seemed to be about my world
Carlo Rovelli, physicist and author of 'There Are Places in the World Where Rules Are Less Important'
A fully illustrated journey across time and space ... a volume about relishing not just the range and variety, but also the power and possibilities of the discipline it discusses
The Times
About the Authors
Sir Antony Gormley is a distinguished British artist and sculptor perhaps best known for his huge Angel of the North in Gateshead. He won the Turner Prize in 1994 and has been a Royal Academician since 2003. Martin Gayford is art critic for The Spectator and the author of acclaimed books on Van Gogh, Constable and Michelangelo. He is the author of Man with a Blue Scarf: On Sitting for a Portrait by Lucian Freud, A Bigger Message: Conversations with David Hockney, How Painting Happens (and why it matters), Venice: City of Pictures and Love Lucian: The Letters of Lucian Freud, 1939-1954, among others.
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