I don't know if you tried this while you were there and I don't know what the background was like, but I would have attempted to photograph this statue from many different angles, including getting down on my knees and even lower to maybe get it with some sky or something. Shooting from a standing position often produces a plain snapshot and you miss the emotion you are trying to convey. I cropped it in tighter to see if that would help. I cloned out that red thing and also cloned in some grass to get rid of the really bright area near the head. Then some brightness adjustment (levels, curves, and/or shadow/highlight) followed by USM. I may have also used clarity (plugin similar to clarify in PSP)