Sculpture at the Mount

"Two Together" by Joy Brown 

Edith Wharton is best known as a novelist, with several of her works having been made into movies. Think "The Age of Innocence" and "Ethan Fromme." But her talents extended well beyond the page. Wharton was largely responsible for the design of the home in which she and her husband lived in Lenox, Massachusetts. They called their estate "The Mount." One might think the name came from the house's location on a hilltop in the Berkshires. Instead, the moniker was an homage to the home of her great-grandfather in Bordentown, New Jersey that bore the same name.  

During the summer months, the grounds of the Mount are home to a sculpture exhibit. It was great fun to walk the beautiful property and discover the works along the way. Case in point: "Two Together" by Joy Brown. You would have to be a real grouch not to smile when you come upon these characters. 

People sometimes refer to Brown's creations as "humanoid." She pushes back against this description, which she thinks makes her figures sound like empty shells. To Brown, her creations convey a great deal of personality. I wholeheartedly agree. And while this comparison does her work a disservice, I just realized that they remind me a bit of the Pillsbury Doughboy. He always makes me smile, as did Brown's sculptures. To see her work when the streets of New York were home to an exhibit, click here. And for more on Brown, click here.  

"Flight" by Elizabeth Schoonmaker

You're a better (or at least more serious) person than I if you could resist running towards this giant bird. Sadly, the picture of Jayne and me nestled up under the belly of "Flight" was out of focus, so you'll just have to imagine that image. I am still smiling. 

When we got up close to "Flight," its texture reminded me of a Brillo pad. That actually wasn't too far off. The work is made primarily of knitted stainless steel mesh, with some bed springs and rebar thrown in for good measure. Artists are so creative. 

It makes sense to me that artist Elizabeth Schoonmaker's primary occupation is as an author of children's books. Her best known character is Eula, the Square Cat, whose blog you can see by clicking here. (Yes, Eula has her own blog.) If only I had grandchildren. To see more of Schoonmaker's art, click here. I was a bit surprised to discover that her paintings are floral works with none of the whimsy of this sculpture, which I highly prefer. 

"Finding Center" by David Adilman

I'll leave you with "Finding Center" by David Adilman. It made me want to go directly to a yoga studio. Better yet would have been a class on the grounds of the Mount. 

The theme of the entire exhibit is "Flourish," and Adilman built the concept into his statement about the work, which reads, "This posture requires internal core strength and mental clarity to find your center and feel grounded. This type of practice helps an individual flourish despite life's ups and downs." I like it. 

Adilman was a geologist by trade, so it makes sense that he worked in stone. He began with limestone then moved on to marble then granite, the medium from which "Finding Center" was made. In his artist statement, Adilman said, "The most fun is when you pull a body part or form you are seeking out of the stone. It's a perfect mix of courageous action, physical exertion, intense observation and focused contemplation." How gratifying that must have been. For more on Adilman and his work, click here.

The Mount

For a deeper dive into the Sculpture at the Mount exhibit, click here. I look forward to returning to the Mount and touring the home. In addition to her fiction, Wharton co-wrote the book "The Decoration of Houses" with Ogden Cogman, Jr. The style for which the duo advocated apparently rejected the flashiness of the ostentation associated with the Gilded Age. Out with Victorian clutter (the mere thought of which makes me feel a bit confined) and in with strong lines, balance and symmetry. Still, the house itself looks pretty grand. 

For more on the Mount and the programs held there, click here. Don't miss this beautiful property if you find yourself in the Berkshires. 

"Cultural Hypothecary" by Alison Pebworth at MASS MoCa

Having a spot of golden root tea

It's not often that you have the chance to enjoy a cup of tea in a museum gallery. Beverages aren't typically allowed for fear of klutzes like me damaging the art. What was going on? 

Jayne and I had wandered into Alison Pebworth's "Cultural Apothecary." As I'm sure you know, apothecaries were the precursors to today's pharmacies. Even the name sounds old fashioned, doesn't it? So in the days of yore, you would hit up the local apothecary when you were sick. But what, pray tell, is a cultural apothecary? 

The guiding principle behind Pebworth's installation is "Before we find a cure we must know what ails us. Agreed, but where was she going with this? Pebworth believes that what ails many of us today is Americanitis. It turns out this isn't a malady Pebworth made up for purposes of her exhibit. Instead, it's a condition diagnosed more than a century ago that's caused by too much stress, too little sleep, rushed meals and technology changing too fast to keep up with. Does this sound familiar? 

Registering my state of mind 

The exhibit features a number of participatory stations designed to help visitors determine if they are suffering from Americanitis. If you look carefully, you'll see that the plates in front of us at the bar hold a little red ball. When we had finished our tea, we popped over to the heart-shaped station shown here. We then registered how we were feeling at that moment by dropping our balls into the applicable valves.The options were anger, fear, gratitude, grief, hope, joy, loneliness and shame. 

The results are tallied weekly and posted. Dating back to the exhibit's opening in February, the top two emotions people registered feeling were hope and gratitude. Fear and joy competed for third place. Interesting. 

Another station gives visitors the opportunity to jot down their thoughts on the causes of Americanitis today. My contribution was the potential for isolation that comes with our technologically driven world. (I get the irony as I write this blog on my laptop to be distributed via the internet.) To the best of my recollection, the exhibit doesn't post results from this inquiry. It's more of a "physician heal thyself" opportunity. 

Hopes and dreams make up this sculpture

Then there was this sculpture hanging in the center of the room. It too is heart-shaped, and it expands daily as visitors add their droplet-shaped papers on which they've put their hopes and dreams out to the universe. I found this post on Instagram in which you can see some of the contributions. I'm struck by how heartbreaking many of these responses are. I'm not naive enough to think that these "tears" were chosen randomly for the Instagram post, but I do believe this exhibit both allows and encourages honesty in participants. After all, nobody is ever going to know what you contributed. 

You might wonder whether Pebworth is gathering this data for any larger purpose. The answer is no. In this terrific interview, she explained. "The science and the data collection were never meant to be the predominant thing. I mean, what do I know about science or data collection or anything? I'm just kind of playing with our very American obsession with data and slowing it down into a visceral experience and using play as its own critique of our dependence on consumer-driven analysis."

Causes include distance from nature,
rapid eating and excessive punctuality

For more on Americanitis, click here to read an article in Smithsonian Magazine. It's worth looking at just for Rexall's ads for the elixir the company created to help people suffering from the malady. Rexall began selling the product -- which contained alcohol, cannabis and chloroform -- in 1903. There were separate ads created to appeal to "Over-Wrought Business Men," "Nervous, Over-Wrought and Run Down Women," and boys and girls who are "thin or nervous." Talk about targeted marketing. 

And if you are a NYT subscriber, you can also read this article penned by a writer after he stumbled upon a different ad for the elixir. He called it "the most amazing piece of promotion he'd ever seen, not that it was obvious what was being promoted." The ad guaranteed that anyone who took the drug would feel younger. Who wouldn't be tempted? 

 "Cultural Apothecary" continues at MASS MoCa through September 7th. Don't miss it if you're in the area. For more on the exhibit, click here. I would love to see the experience come to Sarasota Art Museum. Just throwing it out there... 

Louise Bourgeois Takes On the Berkshires

Louise Bourgeois "Eyes"
commissioned by Williams College in 2001

Sometimes I come upon art that I'm so eager to see that I start running towards it. It's not pretty, but I can't help myself. Case in point: Louise Bourgeois' "Eyes."  

The sculptures can be found on the lawn outside Williams College's art museum. Oh. My. God. How could you resist engaging with these wonderful works? Some have built in benches so you can hang out with them without getting grass stains on your white jeans. Some have electric lights that glow with deep blue and pink hues at night. I am definitely checking that out on my next visit. 

Not surprisingly, there's more to these works than whimsy. The College's website notes that "eyes, for Bourgeois, were metaphors for the truth and, as she once said, 'eyes relate to seduction, flirtation and voyeurism.'" I get that. But I think it was more personal than that for the artist. 

Bourgeois' father had multiple affairs when she was young, including with her nanny. Knowing that, it's hard not to think of her saying, "I saw you, Papa" when you look at these works. It's worth noting that in addition to being a philanderer, Bourgeois' father is described as having been "tyrannical." It's not exactly the type of upbringing that makes a kid feel secure. 

More "Eyes" at Williams College 

As if this weren't enough to deal with, Bourgeois' mother passed away when the artist was just 22 years old. The loss left her feeling not only heartbroken but abandoned. After her father's death almost two decades later, Bourgeois went into therapy. It wasn't just garden variety therapy either, but psychoanalysis. In case you're not familiar with the difference, psychoanalysis is based on Freudian theory, which delves into the unconscious mind and past traumas. It sounds very intense. 

With this information in hand, it's no surprise that Bourgeois' work has deep psychological meaning. Discussions of her "Eyes" sculptures note the resemblance between the works and breasts. I have to admit that I didn't notice the likeness when I was standing in front of them, although it now seems obvious. In any event, it calls to mind her father's affairs once again. I actually feel kind of bad about enjoying the works so much now that I know more about their meaning. 

"The Couple" 

We also came upon this dangling sculpture by Bourgeois when visiting MASS MoCa. It's called "The Couple." Before I expound, take a good look at it and think about how it makes you feel. Note: The average time spent looking at an artwork in a museum is between 15 and 30 seconds. You can do better than that! 

The "cocoon" in which the couple find themselves enfolded is made of the woman's flowing locks. I don't think I got that when I saw the work. From reading a bit online, it seems that viewer reactions range from experiencing claustrophia to feeling embraced. I'll leave it to you to guess which camp I fall into. To read a bit more about "The Couple," click here.  

I'd feel remiss writing about Bourgeois without mentioning her spiders, although none were on display. The largest of these works stands 30' high and 33' across and is named "Maman." The sculpture features a sac with 32 eggs in it. While that sounds kind of creepy to me, it was an homage to her mother. 

You might wonder what the connection was in Bourgeois' mind between her mother and a spider. First, her mother repaired tapestries, which of course are woven like spider webs. More significantly, Bourgeois believed spiders represented the duality in her mother as both a protector to young Louise and a threat to the outside world. Remember those years she spent in analysis? To see an image of this iconic work in situ at the Guggenheim in Bilbao, click here. 

With that, I'll close this post. For more on Bourgeois and her work, click here. The link includes exercises to create your own Louise Bourgeois-inspired art. Let me know if you take the challenge. 

"American Stories: Revolution to Rockwell" at The Norman Rockwell Museum

"Murder in Mississippi" by Norman Rockwell (1963)

It's likely that when you think of Norman Rockwell it's his covers for The Saturday Evening Post that come to mind. After all, he created 323 cover images for the magazine over the 47 years he worked there. But Rockwell had more to say in his art than the somewhat sentimental depictions of American life that graced the magazine's covers. And with the advent of the Civil Rights Movement, he didn't agree with the Post's policy that Blacks should only be depicted in minor or subservient roles. 

In 1963, Rockwell parted ways with his longtime employer and moved to Look, a magazine that embraced photojournalism. "Murder in Mississippi" (also known as "Southern Justice") is a painting Rockwell created that year for an investigative article in Look. This work is so different from what I associate with Rockwell that I looked at the wall card multiple times to confirm that he was indeed the artist. 

The painting depicts Andrew Goodman, James Chaney and Michael Schwermer, the civil rights workers who were murdered by Klansmen in Mississippi. It gives me the chills to see Goodman lying dead, Chaney dying and Schwermer looking straight into the eyes of his firing squad, shown as ominous shadows with guns. The sepia tones of the work are interrupted only by the red blood on Chaney's shirt. It's an image that's both hard to look at and hard to look away from. For a deeper dive into Rockwell's process for creating "Murder in Mississippi" and more, click here. It's worth a look. 

"Lincoln Park, Chicago, Democratic
National Committee" by Robert Weaver (1968)

While the Museum features the work of Rockwell, its special exhibits include the work of other artists. Robert Weaver's "Lincoln Park, Chicago Democratic Convention" from 1968 paints a powerful image of the tumult of that time. The work is an example of illustrators becoming serious commentators rather than mere illustrators. Weaver was a proponent of this shift, saying that "Too often [illustrators] merely aid and abet the pre-sold illusion of the age." 

The split scene depicts an image of Lincoln Park with an inset of police entering the same park wearing tactical gear. The layering represents the park at different times, sometimes a bucolic setting and other times the scene of protests and violence. 

The protesters included the Yippies, members of the Youth International Party that the internet describes as "a radical, theatrical anti-authoritarian group [that] mixed 1960s counterculture with leftist politics, using street theater and pranks to mock the government." Think Abbie Hoffman and Jerry Rubin. It was these protests that led to the conspiracy trial of the Chicago Seven. Talk about a subject that is worthy of -- but won't receive here -- a deep dive. 

"Locked in the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire,
New York City 1917" by Frances Jetter (2019)

Next up is "Locked in the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire, New York City, 1917" by Frances Jetter. It's starting to feel like American history only has tragedies, isn't it? Stick with me as this post ends on a more optimistic note. 

The 1911 fire at the Triangle Shirtwaist Company factory led to the death of 146 workers. Tragedies happen, of course. But the true tragedy in this case is that the deaths of most of those people could have been avoided. 

Building owners Max Blanck and Isaac Harris had a history of non-compliance with proper safety protocols. (They also had a history of torching their buildings for insurance payments, although they only did that when the building was empty.) The lack of adequate safety measures became deadly when a discarded cigarette or match landed in a bin of fabric scraps. For more on the tragedy, click here. 

The top half of Jetter's painting features an image of people with umbrellas and notes "New York City streets were filled with mourners and protesters." Limiting the palette to black and white is both a reference to archival photography and to the dark reality of working conditions in the factory. The lower half shows Blanck and Harris. The language on the left of the painting states the following concerning the men's trial and their ongoing business:

-- Factory owners Blanck and Harris were found not guilty of manslaughter. 

-- They settled 23 civil suits, paying $75 per life lost. 

-- Their new factory was a firetrap with no fire escapes or adequate exits. 

-- In August 1913, Blanck was fined $20 for locking a door during working hours. The judge apologized to him. 

For more work by Francis Jetter, click here. 

"New Kids in the Neighborhood" (1967)

As I promised, I'll end with a more optimistic work. Rockwell's "New Kids in the Neighborhood" was created following the desegregation of Chicago's Park Forest Community and shows kids sussing each other out. There's curiosity but no fear. If only things were so simple.

The work calls to mind Rockwell's iconic image of Ruby Bridges walking to school with agents from the U.S. Marshals Service flanking her. I mention this in part because Ms. Bridges will be appearing at an event in Sarasota on November 12th. I've heard her speak, and she's well worth hearing. For information on the event, click here.  

And for more on the Norman Rockwell Museum, click here. It's well worth a trip the next time you're in the Berkshires. 

"Guggenheim Pop: 1960 to Now"

"Soft Pay Phone" by Claes Oldenburg (1963) 

When I think of the Guggenheim, it's the rotunda that comes to mind. It's pretty iconic. Not surprisingly, that's where the lead exhibit can be seen. But the Museum has side rooms as well, which is where "Guggenheim Pop:1960 to Now" is now on display. I enjoyed it much more than the works by Carol Bove in the rotunda.

Pop Art was a movement that pushed back against the rigors of traditional fine art. Artists working in this style looked to everyday objects and television and even comic books for their inspiration. The movement came on the heels of Abstract Expressionism and the non-objective canvases of works by the likes of Jackson Pollock and Mark Rothko. What a contrast.   

Claes Oldenburg's "Soft-Pay Telephone" is a prime example of Pop Art. But why a phone? And why is it so baggy? 

If you think back to the 1960s, pay phones were a fact of life. Oldenburg created this work in 1961, well before the first mobile phone -- weighing in at two pounds -- was invented in 1973. Even the shoe phone, compliments of "Get Smart," was years away. So the object is something everyone who saw it would have related to in some way. 

The bagginess is another thing all together. A couple of years earlier, Oldenburg created an installation called "The Store" that featured plastic replicas of ordinary objects, from clothing to food to, yes, a pay phone. The lumpy goods were stand-ins for the human body, which is why the phone sags a bit. I could have lived without thinking about that analogy. 

"Pearls" by Jim Dine (1961)

Jim Dine is known for affixing everyday objects to his canvases. Often, these items were sourced from the streets of New York. And so the "pearls" for which this painting is named are not pearls at all but small rubber balls cut in half. 

You might have noticed that some of the letters in the word "Pearls" are blurred together. This was not just sloppiness on the artist's part. Instead, the style represents the blurring of the lines between language and physical reality. I like it. 

In addition to his conceptual art, Dine is known as one of the founders of the Happenings movement. Happenings were improvisational participatory art events that included the audience. They were typically held in art galleries or lofts or similar spaces that allowed people to freely join the action. My law school roommate and I once inadvertently attended a happening at a restaurant in California.Talk about feeling like a deer in the headlights. We remained firmly in our seats with baffled expressions on our faces. 

"Julia" by Kara Romero (1977)

I was excited to come upon a work by Cara Romero, an artist I was introduced to in the "Something Borrowed, Something New" exhibit now on at Sarasota Art Museum. I've become a fan of Romero's photographic storytelling. 

"Julia" is an image from Romero's series entitled First American Dolls in which she presents Native Americans as dolls in life-size boxes. This made me wonder whether there is a Native American American Girl doll. The answer is "yes." Kaya'aton'my (or Kaya) debuted in 2002 and was developed after extended consultation with members of the Nez Perce tribe.

Romero's intention in creating this series was to represent the stories of Native Americans accurately rather than as a stereotype. In this work, the artist's niece wears a traditional dress known as a "manta" made from hand-woven cloth. The objects in the work include baskets woven by the artist's grandmother and an ancestor's drum. It doesn't get much more personal than that. 

For more on Romero and her work, click here. And to see her "TV Indians" on view at Sarasota Art Museum, click here. Better yet, come see the work in person if you're in the area. "Something Borrowed, Something New" runs through September 27th.

With the July 28, 2026 version of "Comedian" by Maurizio Cattelan

I'll leave you with "Comedian" by Maurizio Catelan, a work that never fails to garner interest. This isn't the first time I've encountered this unusual artwork. I attended Art Basel in 2019 and was among the thousands of people to stop by and see a banana duct taped to a wall. 

The original work sold for a whopping $120,000. Then, in what can only be referred to as "monkey see, monkey do," another collector snapped up the second "edition" of the work, with a third edition going for $150,000. I thought that was crazy at the time. But what's really bananas is that in 2024, "Comedian" sold for -- wait for it -- $6.2 million at an auction at Sothebys. The purchaser was Jason Suh, a "cryptocurrency entrepreneur." That actually kind of makes sense. This edition was gifted to the Guggenheim, with the collector getting a hefty tax write off. 

I suspect one of the many things you're thinking is "What happens when the banana rots?" Cattelan considered that issue, of course. The artwork comes with a set of instructions about how to replace it, which I would dearly love to see. "Go to Publix and purchase a near ripe banana" could be the starting point. For more on Cattelan and his conceptual artwork, click here. And with that, it's time for breakfast.  

"Costume Art" at the Met

Rafaello Monti's "The Veiled Woman"
and John Galliano's Ensemble

The Costume Art exhibit now on at the Met is beyond fabulous. The exhibit showcases garments that date "from prehistory to the present," most of which are from the Met's extensive collection. (In case you're wondering -- as I was -- the term "prehistory" means the period before people left written records.) While this would be a terrific show in and of itself, what puts it over the top is the pairing of the costumes with other objects and works of art. 

Take, for instance, Rafaello Monti's sculpture of "The Veiled Woman" circa 1854 and John Galliano's "Ensemble" from Maison Marciela's autumn/winter 2020-2021 haute couture collection. The pairing is situated by a beautiful headless sculpture whose details I neglected to note. In my defense, there is a lot going on in this exhibit. 

These artworks features "wet drapery," a term for this clinging form of dress. Think of it as the ancient equivalent of a wet t-shirt contest. The sculptural style dates back to ancient Greece circa 5th century BC, a time when it was deemed inappropriate to fully reveal a woman's body in a work of art. Today there's much less concern about that, but wet drapery lives on. Click here to see Kendall Jenner rocking the style at the most recent Met Gala, an event that funds the work of the Costume Institute. The dress wouldn't be easy to dance in, but I don't think that was her priority.

Gown by Yahji Yamamoto, "Corazon, Corazon" by Nahum B. Zenil
and "Ensemble" by Daniel Roseberry (House of Schiaparelli)

How about a little color to perk things up?  Shown here are, from left to right, Yahji Yamamoto's red silk crepe de chine dress from the spring/summer 2005 collection, "Corazon, Corazon" by Nahum B. Zenil (1981), and Daniel Roseberry's "Ensemble" from Schiaparelli's autumn/winter 2025-26 haute couture collection. The necklace complementing the Schiaparelli is made of silver brass and red Swarovski crystals. 

You might notice -- I didn't at the time -- that the head and the arms of the mannequin wearing the Schiaparelli are positioned backwards. What's with that? Schiaparelli is known for merging haute couture with surrealism. A distant bell is now ringing in my head about a Schiaparelli exhibit at the Dali in St. Pete, which you can read about by clicking here. Her work -- and that of her studio assistants -- has always been fabulous. 

Yamamoto is best known for his oversized silhouettes, heavy use of black and avant garde tailoring. So we're only batting .333 here. The description of this gown notes that "the accordion-like folds...oscillate between compression and release, akin to a pulse." Huh. I could have stood there forever and never gotten that analogy. But this interpretation of the gown makes sense in the context of Zenil's painting, with his self-portrait embedded in a human heart. In fact, the Spanish word for "heart" is "corazon;" hence, the name of the work. The curators must have had a blast coming up with these groupings. 

Roman cuirass paired with chest coat and waist coat by YSL

I'll leave you with perhaps the most striking pairing in the exhibit. On the left is an Etruscan anatomical vest of sorts known as a cuirass, late 5th-4th century BCE. Beautiful as it is, the bronze piece of armor would have been worn in battle. Interestingly, the cuirass has inlaid copper nipples and what might even be a belly button. This version lacks the six pack that many cuirasses exhibit. The idea was to create something that mimicked a warrior's idealized body. The armor would have been made specifically for the warrior who would wear it and would have sat above his hips to allow freedom of movement. 

This cuirass is paired with a stunning gilt and galvanized copper chest coat and waist coat by Claude Lalanne for Yves Saint Laurent. Lalanne is best known as an artist and sculptor, which explains why these coats are made from gilt and copper rather than fabric. The work is known as a "body sculpture," and the components were cast from the body of supermodel Verushka.YSL said of Claude's creations that "her beautiful sculptor's hands seem to push back the mystery to reach the shores of art." 

Claude Lalanne Chest and Waist Coats on the runway (2022)

It's hard to resist going into a deep live about Lalanne, who created art under the name "Les Lalanne" with her husband Francois-Xavier. The duo are perhaps best known in the world of art for their sculptures of sheep, which you can see by clicking here. I've seen their sheep somewhere along the way in my museum travels, and they are great fun. They don't, however, compare to the beauty of this fashion. For more on Les Lalanne, click here.

With that, I'll leave you with an exhortation not to miss this exhibit if you are in the New York area. If that's not in the cards, you learn see more from the show by clicking here.   

"Giocometti in the Temple of Dendur" at the Met

People in the art world sometimes talk about works of art being "in conversation." While it's a phrase that might make you roll your eyes, it's the perfect way to describe the exhibit "Giocometti in the Temple of Dendur" at the Met. I can imagine the sculptures coming alive after closing and wandering the Temple a la Ben Stiller's "Night at the Museum." But it's the contrasting textures of the stone of the Temple and the stone of Giocometti's sculptures that make the phrase most apt for me in the artistic sense. It's a special exhibit. 

I have a vague recollection of visiting the Temple of Dendur on a summer associate outing circa 1985. It hasn't changed, although my appreciation of it has. The Temple dates back to circa 10 BCE and lived on the Nile River in Lower Nubia, an area between Egypt and the Sudan. It was built during the reign of Emperor Augustus after Rome conquered Egypt. The carvings on the sandstone blocks tell stories, many of which depict Augustus as a pharoah. I have thoughts about that, but they're beyond the scope of this post. As a true aside, did you know the month of August was named after the Emperor? 

You might wonder how the Temple ended up in New York City, a far cry from its original site by the Nile. When Egypt decided to build the Aswan Dam, the Temple had to be moved or it would have been submerged. It was given to the United States in 1965 as thanks for our financial and technical contributions to UNESCO's International Campaign to Save the Monuments of Nubia. 

The Met won the right to house the Temple after a competitive bidding process. The kicker was the institution's promise to build a climate controlled wing that would preserve the sandstone structure. The room is stunning, with vast windows that bring the outside into the space. The Temple opened to the public in its new home in 1978. 

This brings us to the question of how Giocometti's sculptures ended up living on the Temple's grounds, so to speak. Giocometti was fascinated with Egyptian art from a young age, and he could often be found wandering the Egyptian wing of the Louvre. He particularly liked the upright figures of Egyptian pharoahs, which he found full of life and power. They always feel a bit intimidating to me, with their erect postures and static gazes. Writing this, my mind flashed to the guards at Buckingham Palace and kids jumping up and down to make them flinch, to no avail. But I digress. 

Giocometti's earliest walking man sculpture was "Walking Man I" (also known as "Walking Man Leaning Forward.") The work is associated with the quest for human survival despite the trauma of war. The artist had escaped Paris for Geneva during WWII and was overwhelmed when he returned by the devastation the War had wrought. There was physical destruction, of course, but Giocometti was also attuned to the emotional impact of the War on the citizens of his adopted country. The rough texture of his sculpture's surfaces represent the psychological scarring carried by survivors, so the fact that they're somewhat unsettling is apt. 

Giocometti's sculptures are also associated with Existentialism, the basic idea of which is that each individual is responsible for the path her life takes. "One must imagine Sisyphus happy," said Albert Camus. It seems appropriate to envision Sisyphys rolling his stone up the hill in a continuing loop while thinking about how incredibly difficult it was to construct the Temple of Dendur. Happily, the stones of the Temple of Dendur have stayed in place all these centuries. 

I'll leave you with a hieroglyphic from one of the Temple's 661 Nubian sandstone blocks. It's truly amazing that the images -- sacred carvings to the Egyptians -- have survived, especially because the blocks are not glazed. If my calculations are correct, each block weighs close to 2,000 pounds. Nobody was going to make off with one of them in the middle of the night. 

This image depicts Hathor and Harendotes receiving wine from Pharoah Augustus, whom I seem to have cut out of the image. Oops! For more on the carvings, click here. 

If this post has piqued your interest in the history of the Temple of Dendur, click here for a short video. And click here to see some fabulous images of Giocometti in his tiny Parisian studio. They're quite a contrast to the expansive space where his sculptures are on display at the Met.

"Giocometti in the Temple of Dendur" runs through September 8th. It's a must see exhibit if you're in New York.