This cultural history, delving back through the centuries, sets out to answer how sculpture, for so long regarded as a more limited art, has come to take a leading role today? From the Renaissance to the 19th century, sculpture was painting's poor relation. Yet, from the start of the 20th century, sculpture increasingly took centre stage: the Turner Prize is usually won by a sculptor of some form. This book aims to answer the questions: why is this, and what has happened? Illustrated throughout, containing charaters and bizarre incidents as well as illuminating examples and heated arguments, this work offers a guide to the art of the past and up to the end of the 20th century.