The World's Most Famous MARBLE Sculptures!

Diamonds and sapphires, emeralds and rubies, opals and pearls. We love gems and minerals and the beauty they add to our lives. Marble is just as ornamental a material as gemstones, and you can do so much more with marble than just fancying up your kitchen. You can wear it as jewelry, you can find it in design and architecture, it's even the medium for some of the greatest art in the world. This stuff is simply marvelous. Marble is a kind of metamorphic rock, meaning it's the result of a transformation of another kind of rock. Marble is a recrystallization of carbonate rocks like limestone, dolomite or calcite. Calcium carbonate, CaCO3, is one of the same ingredients that comprise pearls. Pure marble is white, but iron, feldspar and serpentine inclusions and imperfections can drastically change the color. And because marble is relatively easy to carve, it's been used in sculpture and architecture since the classical eras of ancient Greece and Rome. If you appreciate marble, Rome is one of the best cities you can visit. The Pantheon, which is almost 2,000 years old, was partially constructed from marble quarried all over the Roman Empire. The main temple was constructed from brick and granite. The marble was used extensively for ornamentation. And the marble statues you can find in churches, streets and museums all around the city are arguably even more impressive than the architecture. In Bernini's Apollo and Daphne, you can see how he skillfully carved the marble to show a transformation in progress from human flesh to tree. But by far, the most moving marble sculptures come to us from the great master Michelangelo. I know you know his work, maybe the Sistine Chapel ceiling rings a bell? In addition to painting, Michelangelo was one of the greatest sculptors of all time. And many of his masterpieces are carved from, you guessed it, marble. You can compare two very famous works to show just how talented Michelangelo was with marble. Michelangelo's David is a 17-foot sculpture of the biblical hero and one of the most famous statues in the world. His hands and feet are extraordinarily detailed and you can see the determination in this young man's face. Michelangelo's Pieta, which depicts the Virgin Mary cradling the body of Christ, is almost as well known. From one piece of stone, Michelangelo found a strong, determined David. In another, he found a mother in mourning, draped in heavy, flowing robes. One of the most stunning uses of marble in the world is found a few thousand miles away from Italy, in India. The Taj Mahal, finished in 1648, is just filled with gorgeous white marble. The Taj Mahal is actually a mausoleum built by the Mughal emperor Shah Jahan for his beloved wife, Mumtaz Mahal. She died at age 38, a year before the Taj Mahal was commissioned, after giving birth to her 14th child. Supposedly, the Shah wanted his mausoleum to be identical black marble building mirrored across the lake, but many geologists now think this is a myth. The main dome of the Taj Mahal is formed with marble. The gorgeous, detailed nature motifs are carved from marble, and the interior false tombs behind the latticework of perforated marble, called Jali, are made of marble, holding the remains of both Mumtaz and the Shah. These designs, filled with beautiful colored inlays, are called Pietra Dura. White and sometimes black marbles are often used as the base in Pietra Dura designs, and the colored rocks and gemstone material in the inlay are so delicately cut, they actually lock in place. You don't have to head to Italy or India to see some of the world's most impressive marble art, because Washington, D.C. is absolutely filled with it. The Washington Monument, which was constructed in the 1870s and 1880s, used marble from different quarries. If you look closely, you can even see the differences. The Lincoln Memorial includes marble in its construction, too. Marble from Tennessee, Alabama, Colorado, and Georgia was chosen specifically to symbolize that a country formerly rendered apart by war could come together to build something beautiful. That's marble for ya! How many mausoleums have you built? Do you look at the statues of Michelangelo and think, I could do that? Tell us the secret to your self-esteem down in the comments. And while you're at it, don't forget to like and subscribe. For more information on marble, check out the links below. Thanks for watching.