Saturday, August 25, 2012

Jason deCaires Taylor in Collaboration with God

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Robert Lewis Stevenson put it best:

The world is so full of a number of things,
I am certain we all should be happy as kings.

Our times are so rich with creative energy that wonderful things can be known to all the world and yet not impinge themselves on our awareness.  It was only last night, trolling the Web for art profound enough to influence my next fantasy novel, that I discovered Jason deCaires Taylor and his astonishing undersea sculpture garden.

I'd have to see it in person to be able to judge the sculptures.  But viewed second-hand, they remind me of Kyle Cassidy's photos.  Rather than using artifice to create an artificial standard of beauty, he photographs people as they really are . . . and reveals the beauty inherent therein.

So too, here.  But then the artist hands his work over to God and says, "Do what thou wilt."  Or as Shaxper put it:

Full fathom five thy father lies;
Of his bones are coral made;
Those are pearls that were his eyes:
Nothing of him that doth fade,
But doth suffer a sea-change
Into something rich and strange.

You can best appreciate the work here.

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1 comment:

Mark Pontin said...

Typo there: "Our time are so rich with creative energy"

Also, such statuary would have fit in nicely in STATIONS OF THE TIDE.