Bronze exhibition at Royal Academy

The Bronze exhibition at the Royal Academy comes highly recommended. There are really some stunningly beautiful bronze statues out there, not the least the Nigerian ones. The Etruscan Hombre della Sera, Willem de Kooning's Clam Digger, Boccioni, Giacometti and some other modern stuff was cool as well (and a welcome change from the very figurative stuff).


There is an astonishing range of styles and techniques in bronze, and the exhibition does not attempt to be complete in themes and countries of origin, but to show those wide ranges according to human forms, animal forms, objects, reliefs and heads/bustes.

It works well that way. There's a beautiful 19th century bust of a north African Jewess that combines marble and bronze, paint and gold. There's prehistoric votive statues which we still can't interpret. There's the wonderful turkey from 1567 (when it had just been discovered in the Americas), an emaciated Buddha from Thailand which I hadn't ever seen there.

So enough to discover for the art lover. For a miniature wargamer, it was also interesting to have a look at the casting and finishing process, which was described in some detail.