To carve or shape material (like stone, clay, or wood) into an artwork or specific form.
From Latin 'sculpere' meaning to carve or engrave. Entered English by the 1600s from Italian 'scultura' and French 'sculpture,' spreading through Renaissance art terminology.
Sculptors literally carve away everything that isn't the artwork inside—Michelangelo famously said he was liberating the figure trapped in the stone, treating the tool as freeing rather than creating.
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