They started work this morning down in City Square

[venta]

G'morning, LJ. Shall we play a game? It's been a while...

At our Sunday night pub quiz the picture round was on statues - so we did considerably better than we do on the usual sporting personalities and C-list celebrities.

Googling (afterwards, of course!) for "famous statues" I found that the ten pictures were, according to one site's list, the ten most famous monuments in the world. However, there were still two statues that none of us recognised at all.

But it made me think: what are the most famous statues in the world?


Good people of LJ: tell me what you consider to be the most famous statues. Ideally fill in ten, but fewer is fine if you get stuck before the end of the list. I'll compile a statue league table, and you get a point for every one you listed which comes out as top-ten. You lose a point for every one you listed that no one else mentioned.

Small print: Has to be a real statue. Has to be specific - though explanation is fine, if you don't know the name of the statue/sculptor. Has to be famous in its own right, rather than as part of an event - e.g. the statue of Saddam Hussein that is really only famous for being pulled over is not really a goer. Also must be actually famous: don't give me any of this "the thing my friend carved out of a parsnip" nonsense.

Wikipedia, he say: "A statue is a sculpture representing one or more people or animals (including abstract concepts allegorically represented as people or animals), normally full-length, as opposed to a bust, and at least close to life-size, or larger."

I'd especially welcome answers from non-UK people, so we don't end up with such a biased list!

[Poll #2014852]

Comments

[venta.livejournal.com]

Stupid flippin' LJ.

It's replacing the single-quote char in my "Let's" with a ' - which it then displayed as a double-quote.

I have defeated it with the power of ’

[shermarama]

Ah! That'd been bugging me for a while too but I didn't know how to fix it, and now I do, so thanks.

[lnr]

I decided to take the hit and probably lose a point with my last one just because I like it. Really looking forwarding to visiting the Yorkshire Sculpture Park in August for my mum's birthday, though a lot of what I like doesn't come under the definition of statues. I googled the answer and was amused by which really obvious ones I completely forgot.

[ar-gemlad.livejournal.com]

"I googled the answer and was amused by which really obvious ones I completely forgot."

Ditto!

[venta.livejournal.com]

Hmm. I'm not sure whether I want "the ten you think of" or "the ten you decide on after mature consideration in association with Google". Both are potentially interesting!

[ar-gemlad.livejournal.com]

I Googled after - my answers are from my brain.

[lnr]

Oh I definitely only googled *after* I filled in my answers! Though the latter is indeed also an interesting question.

[sushidog.livejournal.com]

Oh, I've just thought of one I missed off, but if I try to re-answer the poll I have to start from scratch, and I'm pretty sure I'll forget the ones I already put.

[lnr]

Oh, I was sure you could edit answers, but I just clicked on fill out poll again and lo and behold they were all empty. I hit back rather than submit, but have a sneaking suspicion it may have lost my answers! And I appear to have forgotten one of them.

[venta.livejournal.com]

Oh, that's annoying! I should now be screening anonymous comments, so if you feel the need to add extra answers but the poll mechanism is being arsey, feel free to comment anonymously. But, err, y'know, say who you are :-)

[ghoti.livejournal.com]

I wanted to put Night and Day by Epstein, but ran out of space. But can it please be one of the top 10?

[ringbark.livejournal.com]

What fun! I suspect that my list may be biased, as I have visited all the ones on my list that are possible to visit.

NMA, by the way.

I don't think any of my friends have ever carved a globally famous statue out of a parsnip. Must be the sort of people I know...

[venta.livejournal.com]

One delicately-carved kudo, on a nice plinth, to you!

[shermarama]

The rules do work against each other a bit there - if you I lose points for saying something no-one else said, then that doesn't provide much incentive to try and avoid UK bias. (But googling for a list afterwards - whut? No idea about a couple of those either!)

[venta.livejournal.com]

Well, it depends on whether the other answer-ers are trying to avoid a UK bias :-)

[ar-gemlad.livejournal.com]

The lions in Locke Park in Barnsley are probably only locally famous, I reckon. But that's a travesty!

[bopeepsheep.livejournal.com]

I ran out of room to put in Crazy Horse which I suspect is not famous enough to make many other people's lists but I'm extremely fond of it (and I've been there). "...life-size, or larger" is definitely met! (But it's not finished yet anyway, so may not really count for a few decades...)

[bopeepsheep.livejournal.com]

Also, I suspect "Lenin" is way too vague. There must be hundreds of them...

[bopeepsheep.livejournal.com]

You have no idea how many more I thought of overnight. :D I gave up counting at 24.

[ylla.livejournal.com]

'Close to life-size' would rule out one of the really famous ones (which I forgot!), no?

[venta.livejournal.com]

It says "close to or larger" - so I think we're OK with anything that isn't a teeny-tiny statuette. Not quite sure which "really famous one" you're referring to, though!

[vicarage.livejournal.com]

I'd have put Rodin's Kiss only there are lots of variants of that, ditto the Easter Island Moai. I thought hard about Asian Bhudda's but couldn't pick one, even of the several I've seen.

Christ the Redeemer is the most impressive, the Pieta the most beautiful. Most impressive is Crazy Horse, but no-one's heard of that!

[bopeepsheep.livejournal.com]

Read up! Not only have I heard of it, I've been there and the magnet's on my fridge. :)

[vicarage.livejournal.com]

I've been there too, which is why I plugged it

[bopeepsheep.livejournal.com]

Totally amazing project. I saw Mount Rushmore on the same trip and it was quite 'meh' by contrast (didn't help that it was disappearing into the mist as we arrived). I hope to be able to go back and see it when there's a lot more to see. :D

[ceb.livejournal.com]

Crap, hit go too soon. Hopefully my second go has overridden my first.

[triskellian]

Gah! I forgot one that I've actually seen.

[vicarage.livejournal.com]

Can we see the answers please?