Writing a novel.
Are the names of statues italicized in a books?
Answer
Style guides seem to be all over the place on this question. For example, The Oxford Guide to Style (2002), at section 6.3, comes out four-square for italics:
Use italics for the titles of paintings, sculptures, and other works of art:
[Relevant example:] Louise Nevelson, An American Tribute to the British People (Gold Wall)
But The Chicago Manual of Style, sixteenth edition (2010) has this rather more granular treatment of the question:
8.193 Paintings, statues, and such. Titles of paintings, drawings, photographs, statues, and other works of art are italicized, whether the titles are original, added, by someone other thn the artist, or translated. The names of works of antiquity (whose creators are often unknown) are usually set in roman.
[Relevant examples:] Michelangelo’s David[;] the Winged Victory[;] the Venus de Milo
And The New York Times Manual of Style and Usage (1999) advocates for quotation marks—mostly:
sculptures. Capitalize the principal words in their names. And use quotation marks, except for generic titles like Pietà.
Given newspapers’ longstanding hostility to using italics under any circumstances, I gather that this style manual italicizes Pietà in the second sentence not because it advocates italicizing generic title but because it is referring to the title as a "word used as word"; in short, AP seems to be arguing in favor of quotation marks for unique names (say, Rodin’s "The Thinker"), but regular roman without quotation marks for common titles (say, the Aphrodite of Knidos).
In any event, whatever title style you favor for statues, you can probably find a style guide to support you.
Attribution
Source : Link , Question Author : user237736 , Answer Author : Sven Yargs