Few realize this, but the last few decades have witnessed an explosion in the numbers of realistic bronze statues. For example, here is Dr. Johnson refuting Bishop Berkeley’s philosophy of subjective immaterialism by violently kicking a stone: “I refute it thus!”

After we came out of the church, we stood talking for some time together of Bishop Berkeley’s ingenious sophistry to prove the non-existence of matter, and that every thing in the universe is merely ideal. I observed, that though we are satisfied his doctrine is not true, it is impossible to refute it. I never shall forget the alacrity with which Johnson answered, striking his foot with mighty force against a large stone, till he rebounded from it, “I refute it thus.”

— James Boswell, The Life of Samuel Johnson

I’m not sure that Dr. Johnson wound up quite like David Beckham taking a free kick, but you get the point.

This is in the Garden of Heroes and Villains in England, which is a private spot intermittently open to the public. It has about 50 life-size statues of people the owner thought were cool, like Roger Bannister and Chuck Berry.