Statues

It has been my experience that the statues of men and, indeed, of more noble creatures like angels, that are nearer to ground level have often been more impressive than the lofty, more aerial ones that are so lifted off of the ground as to seem ethereal and quite unimpressive, after all.  This is most likely a mistake in personal interpretation, since I am quite sure the designers of the more pedagogue style statues meant to elevate their subjects for the sheer purpose of impressing a certain sentiment – likely one of overt submission or subjection – to its viewers.  In fact, it’s so overt that it’s covert.  No one passing by statues in a park or executive lawn is necessarily and immediately smitten with quivering fear and a foreboding sense that if they do not pay penance (and attention) to the statue that they will be stricken with lightning, or rolled over with a boulder.  However, for those more keen observers, who truly try to place themselves in the designer’s shoes, holding the artist’s chisel, and considering the artist’s perspective – to this observer, the more imminent feeling of lowliness in comparison to the exalted statue becomes quite apparent.  Seated high above the plane of normal human existence is often some great political, military, academic, religious or social leader that has achieved godlike status.  To be sure, the Greeks did not make statues of just anyone (then again, they did have a statue to ‘an unknown god’ – but it was a ‘god’ after all).   Nonetheless, when confronted with these ominous figures, one cannot help but feel a sense of awe, not merely for the ideology or achievement that the statue represents, but in the presence of the statue itself.  What I mean is this:  the mere physical size of the statue is often enough to make one realize their own weakness and fragility, let alone the symbol and person that the statue represents.  Suppose, for a moment, that a 15-foot statue of some figure from history that one were observing suddenly came alive, but retained its stone or marble material as its core structure; that is, the stone figure itself became animated.  Imagine how invincible it would be against a mere man.  Only something like a wrecking ball or dynamite would be sufficient to eliminate such an opponent.  If this seems silly to the reader, then they have not fully consider the extent of the silliness.  For such a creature to even move an elbow or knee, unlike a flexible human with tendons and ligaments at its joints, this creature would have to destroy rock on the inner curve of the joint and generate rock on the outer curve for a bending movement to even be possible.  Nonetheless, the idea still remains daunting.  I have seen both the Lincoln Memorial statue of Abraham Lincoln, in which Lincoln is seated in all of his Parthenon loftiness, and the Gettysburg Memorial Visitor Center statue of Lincoln, where his 6 foot 4 inches statue is seated on an unassuming park bench.  I was more impressed by the latter, since I was more confronted with the reality of the man himself and of the my smallness in the presence of the man himself was much more of a felt experience than my smallness in the presence of a statue the size of a building.