Antony Gormley is making the stones to go on existing plinths

"I'm delighted to be able to realise Stone Circle," Mr Gormley said.

"In making a work for the British Library, I wanted to celebrate the body and its dependency on matter within the context of this repository for the mind.

He said he hoped the circle would act in a similar way to that of contemplative stones in a Japanese garden.

"It is a tribute to independent creative thinking - one of the most fundamental assets that we have within Britain," he said.

The eight stones will be one metre high and have come from the glacial plain in Lymnhaven, Sweden.

Clinging on

They will stand on eight empty plinths that are already in the area known as Poet's Circle in the library's piazza.

Human figures will be seen to be clinging on to them by the time the sculpture is completed this spring.

Mr Gormley won the Turner Prize in 1994 and as well as the giant Angel of the North overlooking a motorway in Gateshead, Tyneside, he has also created sculptures up oak trees and for DIY stores.

Lynne Brindley, the library's chief executive, said it was an exciting project.

"We are delighted that an artist of Anthony Gormley's international stature is producing the sculpture," she said.