Sunday, February 11, 2007

Thomas Jefferson: OMOM Essay 50


"About the Sculpture" discusses how the texture of Jefferson relates to the works of Rodin, who influenced many American sculptors in the early 20th c. For "About the Subject" I decided to focus on the 1803 Louisiana Purchase, since it could be linked to several other sculptures in Outdoor Monuments of Manhattan: Lafayette (Essay 14; see also the essay on Forgotten Delights), Lewis and Clark (Essay 42, part of the Theodore Roosevelt ensemble), and De Witt Clinton (Essay 48).

In the Forgotten Delights calendar I used a favorite Jefferson quote, which ends: "Reason and experiment have been indulged, and error has fled before them. It is error alone which needs the support of government. Truth can stand by itself." Incidentally, all the quotes in the Forgotten Delights calendar are material that didn't fit in OMOM, except for one or two where the calendar cites in full something I only excerpted in OMOM.

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