Sculpture and the Sculptural

Pictures and the pictorial are the subjects of a burgeoning philosophical literature. Sculpture and the sculptural, by contrast, have received little attention. What recent philosophical thought there has been has focused almost exclusively on the nature of sculpture, rather than the sculptural, and has sought to understand the art form primarily in terms of the physical characteristics of art materials and the role of our perceptual and cognitive faculties in appreciation. I will argue that these theories fail to provide an adequate conception of sculpture, or its differences from painting and pictures. Instead, I develop a theory of the sculptural in terms of a distinctive way of using materials as an artistic medium. Such an account enables us