Thursday, June 14, 2007

Two views of pain and sorrow..........

There are things in this world that defy explanation. Sometimes its family, sometimes it's emotion, and sometimes it is that feeling that although you were not directly involved you understand the pain and sorrow just by looking at a picture or sculpture. I try not to envy, and yet there are people, sculptors to be specific that I am in awe at what they can accomplish with just a simple stroke of a brush, or nick of the chisel.

There were two events on this trip that showed the beauty, the pain, the sorrow of mankind.


The first is a lion - not just a lion - but a
representation of a group of people who
suffered a horrible loss, and we can see
it in the lion's eye. How unbelievably
talented was that sculptor to know how to
shape, how to caress the pain and
sorrow and express that in a simple eye,
an eye that can say so much to the world.

The eye made me cry, as if it were saying

"I did my best, but I have lost."




Swiss guards were hired to protect French King Louis XVI his wife Marie-Antoinette and their children. When the French mobs attacked the Palace more than 700 Swiss officers and soldiers died trying to protect the royals. The Sculpture was created by Danish artist Bertel Thorvaldson.

It is carved out of a sand stone cliff above the city center of Lucerne, Switzerland.




Dachau Concentration camp Germany
The second sculpture is much more moving, much more of the pain and suffering of man. And yet our eyes are drawn to the simplicity of the sculpture, at first it seems a simple twist of metal, then our brains absorb the shapes and we begin to see the depth of human suffering and pain. We are at first repulsed and our hearts reject what our eyes are seeing, but the brain insists - LOOK, FEEL, REJECT, ACCEPT, REMEMBER...........

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

I am just stunned by the power of the Lion at Lucerne. I have gone back to it several times. I would have just wept upon seeing it. Last year when my husband and I were in the UK, we came upon unexpected sculptures in two different places that moved me to my core. This would be among them. Thank you so very much for putting it out here for me to see. (I'm glad you were linked on Judi and Norm's site.)

Anonymous said...

STUNNING - UPON MY GUITAR WE GENTLY WEEP. MORE SO THE CHOICE OF THE LION OF BELFORT IN DOMINION SQUARE (NOW DORCHESTER SQUARE) BY EDWARD CAPPER AND GEORGE HILL. IT WAS MEANT NOT TO SLEEP NOR WEEP, BUT TO LIFT ITSELF AWAKE. AFTER A CENTURY WE HAVE REVERSED THE TRAGEDY AND WON THE BATTLE OF THE LION KING/S!
GEO THE LION/KNOWN AS CURFUE-
BRIAN MAGE/ LEIB BEROL/
LION BEAR/
THIS STATUE IS JUST A BLOCK FROM WHERE JOHN LENNON AND YOKO ONO
SLEPT AT THE QUEEN ELIZABETH HOTEL
IN THE CITY OF EXPO 67!

Anonymous said...

In 1870 Antonio Bartholdi created the lion of Belfort in Belfort which was
displayed in 1878 during the Parisien exhibition in smaller copy.
In 1898 for the Queen's jubilee a copy of this was made in Montreal.
In the 1980s a young GEO THE LION
BRIAN LORNE (LEIB BEROL/LION BEAR) MAGE/D went up to the summit of MOUNT ROYAL during a gathering of dignitaries with an eiffel tower on his head and a labelled lion of Belfort in his hands.
The president of France stopped his limousine and had his driver take a photograph!

Anonymous said...

WE TRIUMPH OVER ADVERSITY WITH
A-Z MULTIVERSITY! EGO/GEO THE LION!


JOULES VERNES MAY HAVE HAD A DYSFUNCTIONAL FUTURIAN ATTITUDE CENSORED BY A CATHOLIC EDITOR BUT JOHN MOLSON LEFT A MONTREAL THE ENVY THE WORLD OVER AND FOR SCI-FI COMMUNISTS TO FACE TWO CENTURIES LATER.

JUDITH MERRIL AND FRUM D.
ARE NOT THE ONLY SEMITIC POLITICIANS.
JUDY CHICAGO WAS NOT THE ONLY TOMORROWIST IN CALIFORNIA.
HOWARD ROARK AND JOHN GALT ARE SCIENCE FICTION EQUALS AND THERE ARE REAL MEN WHO MATCH AYN RAND'S FICTIONAL CHARACTER
CAPITALISTS!

Anonymous said...

JULIUS, AUGUSTUS,
WEPT-EMBERS
AND
HALLO-WEEPS LEAD
EVENTUALLY
TO SANTANA,
SATAN, AND
SUN TANS;
OR ''SANTA CLAWS.''

6 MILLION JEWS DIED.
MY GUITAR GENTLY WHIPS!

According to Harrison, inspiration for the song came from reading the I Ching, which, as he put it, "seemed to me to be based on the Eastern concept that everything is
'''relative to everything else,'''
as opposed to the Western view that things are merely coincidental."[2]

Taking this idea of relativism to his parents' home in the North of England, Harrison committed to write a song based on the first words he saw upon opening a random book. Those first words were "gently weeps", and he immediately began the song.


''RAINDROPS ARE FALLING ON MY HEAD.''
BURT BACHARACH, MCGILL GRADUATE 1948.

''RAIN SHOWERS,''
FRIEND RON FRANKL
PLAYED WITH SINGER MICHEL PELEGRIARO IN THE 1970S.

GEO THE LION 1978TM RELATIVE TO
OR COLLINEAR WITH
DISNEY LION KING OVER 10 YEARS LATER.