Sculpture is a three-dimensional work created by molding or combining solid or plastic material, sound or text and/or light, usually stone (stone or marble), clay, metal, glass or wood. Some sculptures are created directly by finding or carving; others are assembled, built together and fired, welded, molded or cast. Sculptures are often painted. The person who creates sculptures is called a sculptor.

Because sculpture involves the use of materials that can be cast or modulated, it is considered one of the plastic arts. Most public art is sculpture. Many sculptures together in a garden could be called a sculpture garden.

Sculptors do not always make sculptures by hand. With the rise of technology in the 20th century and the popularity of conceptual art over technical craftsmanship, more sculptors have turned to artistic fabrications to produce their work. With fabrication, the artist creates a design and pays the fabricator to produce it. This allows sculptors to create larger and more complex sculptures from material such as cement, metal and plastic that they would not be able to create by hand. Sculptures can also be made using three-dimensional printing technology.

The increasing tendency to elevate painting, and to a lesser extent sculpture, above the other arts has been a feature of Western art as well as East Asian art. In both regions painting was perceived as the highest degree of the artist’s imagination, and the most distant from manual labor – in Chinese painting the styles of “scholarly painting,” at least theoretically practiced by gentlemanly amateurs, were most valuable. The Western hierarchy of genres reflected similar views.