|
CAST IN BRONZE
Sunday Apr. 19, 2015
Time to think.
With each day, week and decade so filled, so over-filled, with busy-ness – who has time to think?
By that I mean sitting still, taking time to purge our frenetic activity, quietly thinking, uninterrupted.
I am reminded of Rodin’s ‘The Thinker’, that iconic sculpture which seems to have been sketched, photographed and characterized in so many ways, not that we could know his thoughts but because he symbolizes deep thought. Or so we’ve thought.
I recently had a contact from the operators of the website artsy.net. Their ovation, their explanation – it seems they are trying to connect with people who’ve written about artists they have featured on their website. They reached out to me because I’ve written a piece about about Rodin. More specifically, it was one of my columns from two years ago.
Re-reading that piece was fun (sometimes, when reading my old material it makes my eyes roll … but not this time) because it was fun.
Learning that the folks at artsy are interested flatters me.
We most often see The Thinker photographed from the side, our presumption it stands alone. While it has been reproduced in different castings but seeing its most famous installation, we see a different context, part of and in front of a piece called The Gates of Hell.
My perception of what that Thinker, and Rodin, might have been thinking changes.
For me, his message is that while we may think deeply, we don’t do anything in isolation from our world, from our surroundings, and we are rarely seen all alone – we are seen as part of our environment.
Beware the pigeons.
Mark Kolke
column written/ published from Calgary, AB
morning walk: -5C/22F, calm and clear, several very nice days ahead of us! Gusta found a rabbit surprise around one corner on our walk – not sure who was more started, Gusta, or the rabbit.
Reader feedback:
MORNING PACE
Hello Mark, I am passing through Calgary with my wife the week of April 27 after spending a few days up at Banff, it’s our 42nd wedding anniversary, so every year calls for something special. Your column is read religiously on a daily basis and provides a lot of food for thought. If you are free for lunch on Tuesday 28, I am buying, but you get to choose the venue, All the best, BB, Vancouver, BC
| 
