Look, Ma, a new icon!
One of my all-time favorite works of art, this is "Caryatid who has Fallen Under the Weight of her Stone" by Auguste Rodin. (He's the same man who sculpted the figures for the Dante-inspired "Gates of Hell.")
A caryatid is a structural column of a building sculpted into the shape of a beautiful woman who wears an entablature as a hat. Early examples can be found in Greek architecture at around the 6th Century B.C.E. and the architectural trend continued for centuries and spanned many cultures.
Robert A. Heinlein's passage about this sculpture in Stranger in a Strange Land surpasses anything I could write about it--this from the mouth of Jubal Harshaw, M.D., J.D., pop fiction author extraordinaire:
This poor little caryatid has fallen under the load. She's a good girl---look at her face. Serious, unhappy at her failure, not blaming anyone, not even the gods...and still trying to shoulder her load, after she's crumpled under it.
But she's more than just good art denouncing bad art; she's a symbol for every woman who ever shouldered a load too heavy. But not alone women---this symbol means every man and woman who ever sweated out life in uncomplaining fortitude until they crumpled under their loads. It's courage...and victory.
Victory in defeat, there is none higher. She didn't give up...she's still trying to lift that stone after it has crushed her...she's all the unsung heroes who couldn't make it but never quit.
A caryatid is a structural column of a building sculpted into the shape of a beautiful woman who wears an entablature as a hat. Early examples can be found in Greek architecture at around the 6th Century B.C.E. and the architectural trend continued for centuries and spanned many cultures.
Robert A. Heinlein's passage about this sculpture in Stranger in a Strange Land surpasses anything I could write about it--this from the mouth of Jubal Harshaw, M.D., J.D., pop fiction author extraordinaire:
This poor little caryatid has fallen under the load. She's a good girl---look at her face. Serious, unhappy at her failure, not blaming anyone, not even the gods...and still trying to shoulder her load, after she's crumpled under it.
But she's more than just good art denouncing bad art; she's a symbol for every woman who ever shouldered a load too heavy. But not alone women---this symbol means every man and woman who ever sweated out life in uncomplaining fortitude until they crumpled under their loads. It's courage...and victory.
Victory in defeat, there is none higher. She didn't give up...she's still trying to lift that stone after it has crushed her...she's all the unsung heroes who couldn't make it but never quit.