On Sculpture

Extract from “Stranger In A Strange Land”

‘Enough statues to fill a graveyard!’
‘Please, Ben. ‘Statues‘ are dead politicians at boulevard inter-
sections. What you see is ‘sculpture.‘ And please speak in a low,
reverent tone lest I become violent… for here we have exact
replicas of some of the greatest sculpture this naughty globe has
produced.’
‘Well, that hideous thing I’ve seen before… but when did you
acquire the rest of this ballast?’
Jubal ignored him and spoke quietly to the replica of La Belle
Heaulmière. ‘Do not listen to him, ma petite chére — he is a bar-
barian and knows no better.’ He put his hand to her beautiful
ravaged cheek, then gently touched one empty, shrunken dug. ‘I
know just how you feel… but it can’t be very much longer.
Patience, my lovely.'

He turned back to Caxton and said briskly, ‘Ben, I don’t know
what you have on your mind but it will have to wait while I give
you a lesson in how to look at sculpture — though it’s probably as
useless as trying to teach a dog to appreciate the violin. But you’ve
been rude to a lady… and I don’t tolerate that.’
[…]
Anne looked carefully at Rodin’s masterpiece [The Old Courtesan
(La Belle qui fut heaulmière)], then said slowly,
‘When I first saw it, I thought it was horrible. But I have come to
the conclusion that it may be the most beautiful thing I have ever
seen.’
‘Thanks. That’s all.’ She left. ‘Do you want to argue it, Ben?’
‘Huh? When I argue with Anne, that’s the day I turn in my suit.’
Ben looked at it. ‘But I don’t get it.'

‘All right, Ben. Attend me. Anybody can look at a pretty girl
and see a pretty girl. An artist can look at a pretty girl and see
the woman she will become. A better artist can look at an old
woman and see the pretty girl that she used to be. But a great artist
—a master — and that is what Auguste Rodin was — can look at
an old woman, portray her exactly as she is… and force the viewer
to see the pretty girl she used to be… and more than that, he can
make anyone with the sensitivity of an armadillo, or even you, see
that this lovely young girl is still alive, not old and ugly at all, but
the prisoned inside her ruined body. He can make you feel the
quiet, endless tragedy that there was never a girl born who ever
grew older than eighteen in her heart… no matter what the mer-
ciless hours have done to her. Look at her, Ben. Growing old
doesn’t matter to you and me; we were never meant to be admired
—but it does to them. Look at her!'

Ben looked at her. Presently Jubal said gruffly, ‘All right, blow
your nose and wipe your eyes — she accepts your apology. Come
on and sit down. That’s enough for one lesson.’
‘No,’ Caxton answered, ‘I want to know about these others.
How about this one? It doesn’t bother me as much… I can see
it’s a young girl, right off. But why tie her up like a pretzel?’
Jubal looked at the replica ‘Caryatid Who has Fallen under the
Weight of her Stone’ and smiled. ‘Call it a tour de force in empathy,
Ben. I won’t expect you to appreciate the shapes and masses which
make that figure much more than a ‘pretzel‘ — but you can appre-
ciate what Rodin was saying. Ben, what do people get out of
looking at a crucifix?'

‘You know how much I go to church.’
‘How little you mean. Still, you must know that, as craftsmanship,
paintings and sculpture of the Crucifixion are usu-
ally atrocious — and the painted, realistic ones often used in
churches are the worst of all… the blood looks like catsup and
that ex-carpenter is usually portrayed as if he were a pansy…
which He certainly was not if there is any truth in the four Gospels
at all. He was a hearty man, probably muscular and of rugged
health. But despite the almost uniformly poor portrayal in rep-
resentations of the Crucifixion, a poor one is about as effective as
a good one for most people. They don’t see the defects; what they
see is a symbol which inspires their deepest emotions; it recalls to
them the Agony and Sacrifice of God.'

‘Jubal, I thought you weren’t a Christian?’
‘What’s that got to do with it? Does that make me blind and
deaf to fundamental human emotion? I was saying that the crum-
miest painted plaster crucifix or the cheapest cardboard Christmas
Crèche can be sufficient symbol to evoke emotions in the human
heart so strong that many have died for them and many more live
for them. So the craftsmanship and artistic judgment with which
such a symbol is wrought are largely irrelevant. Now here we have
another emotional symbol — wrought with exquisite craftsman-
ship, but we won’t go into that, yet.

Ben, for almost three thousand
years or longer, architects have designed buildings with columns
shaped as female figures — it got to be such a habit that they did it
as casually as a small boy steps on an ant. After all those centuries
it took Rodin to see that this was work too heavy for a girl. But he
didn’t simply say, ‘Look, you jerks, if you must design this way,
make it a brawny male figure.‘ No, he showed it . . . and generalized
the symbol. Here is this poor little caryatid who has tried — and
failed, fallen under the load. She’s a good girl — look at her face.
Serious, unhappy at her failure, but not blaming anyone else, not
even the gods . . . and still trying to shoulder her load, after she’s
crumpled under it.

‘But she’s more than good art denouncing some very bad art;
she’s a symbol for every woman who has ever tried to shoulder a
load that was too heavy for her — over half the female population
of this planet, living and dead, I would guess. But not alone women
this symbol is sexless. It means every man and every woman who
ever lived who sweated out life in uncomplaining fortitude, whose
courage wasn’t even noticed until they crumpled under their loads.

It’s courage, Ben, and victory.’
‘Victory?’
‘Victory in defeat, there is none higher. She didn’t give up, Ben;
she’s still trying to lift that stone after it has crushed her. She’s a
father going down to a dull office job while cancer is painfully
eating away his insides, so as to bring home one more pay check
for the kids. She’s a twelve-year-old girl trying to mother her baby
brothers and sisters because Mama had to go to Heaven. She’s a
switchboard operator sticking to her job while smoke is choking
her and the fire is cutting off her escape. She’s all the unsung
heroes who couldn’t quite cut it but never quit. Come. Just salute
as you pass her and come see my Little Mermaid.'

Ben took him precisely at his word; if Jubal was surprised, he
made no comment. ‘Now this one,’ he said, ‘is the only one Mike
didn’t give to me. But there is no need to tell Mike why I got it—
aside from the self-evident fact that it’s one of the most delightful
compositions ever conceived and proudly executed by the eye and
hand of man.'

‘She’s that, all right. This one I don’t have to have explained —
it’s just plain pretty!’
‘Yes. And that is excuse in itself, just as with kittens and butter-
flies. But there is more to it than that . . . and she reminded me of
Mike. She’s not quite a mermaid — see? — and she’s not quite
human. She sits on land, where she has chosen to stay . . . and she
stares eternally out to sea, homesick and forever lonely for what
she left behind. You know the story?’
‘Hans Christian Andersen.’
‘Yes. She sits by the harbor of København — Copenhagen was
his home town — and she’s everybody who ever made a difficult
choice. She doesn’t regret her choice, but she must pay for it; every
choice must be paid for. The cost to her is not only endless home-
sickness. She can never be quite human; when she uses her dearly
bought feet, every step is on sharp knives.