atddta 32:death staying the hand of the sculptor

[grladams at teleport.com]

Angel of Death 894-
Much exists on the Pynchon-l archives about the Rilkean angels. 

Some of the places where Angel of Death allegory are realized are in
images, so impossible to paste to the p-list so I have created a website to
contain them  

http://tiny.cc/4FRLr  

A review of the American sculpture at the top of my collage, at it's debut: 
The Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin, Vol. 21, No. 7 (Jul., 1926), pp.
162-161   (article consists of 2 pages, I have only cut out two paragraphs) 

Death Staying the Hand of the Sculptor 
 
The boy looks up, uncomprehending 
and fearless, unwilling to be thus 
stopped in his work in so abrupt and inexplicable 
a fashion. The youthful vigor, 
the questioning rapt gaze, the hand still 
holding the chisel in place-all combine to 
convey the untimeliness of the sculptor's 
death. The angel, on the other hand, is 
the very embodiment of the static forces 
of the ages-the Great Mother from whom 
all energies are given out but to whom also 
they must ultimately return. Her eyes are 
tender with the joys and sorrows of the 
past and of the future. The all-inclusiveness 
of her knowledge is the very sleep 
wherewith she redeems all that has gone 
out from her. 

Gently but surely she advances 
toward the young sculptor, her great 
wings drooping by her sides, carrying in 
one hand a bunch of poppies, symbolic of 
sleep. The shadow of a heavy veil enhances 
the mystery in her face. 
Mr. French has made the meeting of 
Death and the sculptor one of pleasant 
naturalness, excluding from it the attendant 
grief and pain which one ordinarily associates 
with the subject. His rendition is one 
of intellectualized realism in which the idea 
is so direct and powerful as to make the 
experience preeminently spiritual rather 
than physical. The more one studies this 
group the more one is impressed with the 
degree to which the sculptor has inspired 
his material with a message of great poignancy 
and human appeal. 
PRESTON REMINGTON. 

Jill

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