Paradox

Depsite the fact that I am a product of the 80's and have experienced at a fairly maleable age the technological wonders of our time, one thing consistently continues to amaze me: flying. It is truly the closest thing we have to time travel.  The day before last, I flew from the day of one coast over an ocean, through another's night, and arrived on the other side to a sunrise.Homer's "rosy-fingered dawn" to be precise. And I watched those fingers spread from above the clouds. That is the way to arrive in Paris, my friends. So, for any of you still wondering, I arrived!

After settling in and relaxing yesterday, I decided to begin my Paris epic today with an old friend: Rodin. Ever since my father took me to Paris a decade ago, Rodin's sculptures have stayed with me; and it was today that I identified why. Rodin took the hardest, coldest of mediums and created life -- passionate, searing, vulnerable expressions of need, despair, innocence and vulnerability. His art is living paradox. The museum is under quite a bit of construction at the moment, so most of his marble sculptures were in one large room. I had just come to this paradoxical conclusion when I entered the exhibit and read these words: "Marble  is considered  the material most apt to represent flesh, perhaps because it has an inclination for paradox and virtuouso; hard and cold, marble acquires suppleness and warmth as it is transmuted beneath the artist's chisel..." It is only through the work and warmth of the artist that the beauty is bared - in it's rawest, truest form. Not all his work was in marble, but even in his bronze pieces, the effect is the same. Some images are below...his most famous is perhaps "Le Penseur" ("The Thinker" - not shown).

"Despair"

"The Kiss"

"Adam"