Pictures I took :) --->
Writing invitation:
“Writing Invitation: Poet Richard Hugo suggested that writers never ask a question that they themselves can answer. Select an image, begin your freewrite with a question and see where that leads you.”(Baugher).
Lincoln Memorial
Why am I unimpressed by monuments? During the summer of 2019, I saw the Lincoln memorial. After climbing a few flights of marble stairs and walking through the columns of the memorial you are immediately greeted by absolute silence and a humongous statue of President Abraham Lincoln sitting upright in a chair on top of a large slab of marble. The chair Lincoln is sitting in looks like a chair from Minecraft, blocky with sharp lines. If you look closely you can see the marble is sculpted to look like wooden planks on the arms of the chair. His face appears essentially lifeless, and it looks like he is looking off into space. His eyebrows show no expression, and neither do his mouth, cheeks, or ears. He is wearing a suit with an oversized jacket adorned with buttons that covers a vest and an additional shirt underneath. His right hand is in a relaxed position and the index finger on his left hand is pointing out and downwards. He is wearing dress shoes and his feet are in a relaxed position with his right heel gently angled.
Monument Critique
Famous monuments like this one are frankly boring to look at. The monuments I have viewed in person and online do not give me anywhere near the emotion and willingness to dissect that paintings, digital art, or regular statues give me. I am more impressed with my picture of the monument and other people's pictures rather than the monument itself. Perhaps I don't like famous monuments because of the glorification of an individual, or their popularity, or perhaps it's the uniformity of statues that bothers me. Let’s explore these gripes.
Famous monuments display an individual in the most pristine manner. Lincoln, with his hair perfectly in place and fingertips perfectly round, presents a version of himself that I view as robotic, giving me the unsettling sensation I feel when I view artificial intelligence (A.I.) art. Although the monuments of individuals are 3-D they feel 2-D. Famous monuments never reflect an individual's flaws or quirks which is a key aspect of what makes that person unique. Instead, just like history books, it presents an overly glorified version of them. This irritates me because it aids shallow and delusional thinking.
The other reason I don’t like famous monuments is that they are, well, famous. The more famous art or an artist gets the further the connection I feel to the art and the more I am wanting to critique it. Although Pablo Picasso has great paintings, because he is a household name, his art feels less personal to me than the art made by a friend. The same can go for just about anything. I am more likely to say, “Maybe they were having a bad day,” to a local restaurant rather than to McDonald's. When something feels like it was made just for you and a small group of people it gives me myself and surely others a higher probability to be forgiving and considerate.
I can’t think of any other art form that lacks creativity as famous monuments do. All of them look the same and they are all made for the same reason: to honor an influential person. Although many are brilliant in terms of technique, they are all visually boring. I believe the best art makes you question what you are experiencing and for me, acclaimed monuments fail to meet this criterion. The only question it leaves me with is: why do we still look at history through such a binary lens?
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Works Cited
Baugher, Jenée. The Ekphrastic Writer: Creating Art-Influenced Poetry, Fiction and Nonfiction, ebook, McFarland & Company, Inc., 2020.
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