[Milton-L] Kirmss Sculpture

[Feisal Mohamed]

Thanks very much to Ms. Brody-Kirmss for posting the statement accompanying
the piece, which is quite illumining and which led me to visit Mr. Kirmss's
website--though I was disappointed not to find more of his work there
displayed (if pleased to discover the cultural and technical aspects of
Wampum making, which seem quite an interesting aspect of seventeenth-century
trans-Atlantic exchange (see arthurkirmss.com)).
It seems odd that readers of Milton would object to an obscure allusion, and
to its reference to a non-Western culture.  Among its many ambitions, Paradise
Lost aspires to be the first epic that is truly global in scope.  The tongue
with the artist's own words is also apt in its parallel to the act of
writing epic, where a poet evokes the majesty of his predecessors while
making their iterations his own.  That simultaneous reverence and
self-assertion seems to have been captured well.

The description of light emanating from the mouth of the poet also reminded
me of the sculpture 'Shaman with Spirit Helper' reproduced on the cover of
Gordon Teskey's recent book Delirious Mlton, which reproduction also plays
on the poet's inspiration.

Thanks again,
Feisal Mohamed



On Sat, Sep 27, 2008 at 10:59 AM, James Rovira <jamesrovira at gmail.com>wrote:

> I'm not sure that visual symbols work that way.  It seems to me that
> icons only work as a visual language capable of teaching if the
> viewers share enough context to immediately understand the symbols.
> mailman/listinfo/milton-l<http://lists.richmond.edu/mailman/listinfo/milton-l>
>
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