And I saw there a remarkable piece of art. Much abused in the popular press - and yet, as is the way with artists who are cleverer than their critics, the insults had been taken in the artist's stride - and the abusive press cuttings displayed along with the piece.
It was, if I can describe it accurately, a gigantic ball covered in trainers. Soles out. About - what? Maybe eight feet high, I guess. It was bizarre, odd, mad, stupid, insulting to the eye of the beholder - and utterly brilliant. I've no idea where it is, or even if it exists, now. But it was so big, and so round, and so covered with shoes... it was an inspiration.
At much the same time, one frozen Saturday before Hallowe'en, I cycled up to the Rollright Stones. Not the greatest stone circle in the world - the main thing that can be said for them is that they are in some ways the most domestic, stuck on an outcrop of the edge of the Cotswolds between Oxford, Stratford and Birmingham. They just nestle there quietly against the hedge. But that same sheer thingy-ness. The sheer wonder that they even exist. It cries out to you.
And then you look to the heavens - to the work that's displayed up there. The stars, the planets, the phases of the moon. The sheer thingy-ness of it all.
And then you look at the micro level. Not too small. Just at the level of - say - the protein structures of a Haemagglutinin molecule on the outside of a flu virus. Stunning. Absolutely stunning. Sheer thingy-ness.
Or the smile of a child, Or the way clouds hang in the air, just the way bricks don't. Or the way the sea goes in and out. Or the knowledge, almost beyond doubt, that the sun will rise again tomorrow.
Well, it just makes you think. That's all I can say. It just makes you think.
Did you manage to count them?
ReplyDeleteDo you know, it never occurred to me. I was just overcome by its sheer thingy-ness.
ReplyDeleteAnother gem of insight, esteemed Archdruid.
ReplyDeleteIt is not that 'human kind cannot bear too much reality' but that we insist on trying to seem something more than the innate thingy-ness and get upset when we fail.
Wise Words, Fr Simon. However I am aware that if said Giant Ball of Shoes had been in that other establishment in the Fens (not ARU, let the Reader understand) you would all have measured the ball to within nanometers, counted the shoes, noted their sizes, understood what the artist had in mind when creating the work, and probably persuaded the artist to join the Soviets to boot.
ReplyDeleteWe Oxonians are generally fluffier and less focussed.