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from STATUE
OF LIBERTY
 
Bartholdi Pride and Eiffel Ecstasy
Two Giacomettian Portrayals
give
me your tired, your poor . . .
Stressing elongation of Giacomettian figures
as high pedestal taller than halves of sculptures
does – mirroring opposite Liberty’s proportions
a model of which is situated before Bartholdi
on an oval and clay moulding structure
topping a round pin
left hand loosely in pocket
as his leg
embraces a stool
on which tablet has been put.
Right hand stretched out on palette
jacket down up to his loins proudly looking
in front of his
– whereas Eiffel is
holding
a model of his Tower exaltedly high above
his head
– like politics and
law relate
to art and industry.
Giacomettian rough bumpy surface
as emerging from Bartholdi’s beard
seems to add verisimilitude as if
reality may never be caught in exactitude
and may be in need of sketchiness
and vagueness to leave most of
art’s perceptual action to be done
by imagination of the eye
–
whereas close scrutiny may reveal
never more than frustration
of a hyperrealism striking upon
rough stone of Ratner’s suggestiveness
where connotation rules denotation
art is born out of mimicry
of a presumed photographic reality.
Xanadu
(Ofduchampfame) for Poets of London (2003)
Poet's dedication: Thanks to poetess Emma Lazarus, sculptor
Phillip Ratner
and his portrayals of Frederic Auguste Bartholdi and Alexandre Gustave
Eiffel,
artists of respectively the Statue of Liberty, New York, and the Eiffel
Tower, Paris.
Pictures adapted from Bartholdi and Eiffel sculptures
copyright © 2003
The Dennis and Phillip Ratner Museum.
Reproduced with their kind permission. http://www.ratnermuseum.com
Thanks
also to The Israel Bible Museum http://www.israelbiblemuseum.com
'Commune
with your own heart upon your bed, and be still.'
(Psalm IV)
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