both significant and insignificant in terms of the natural world within which we were situated, in Nature.
Finally, growing a bit tired of the game, we decided to head toward the church where
Walpole was buried. Along the way we discovered more casts set high above the ground on plinths, beyond which could be seen near the herd of white fallow deer we initially encountered upon our arrival. The church itself was very simple and traditional, and it was framed by a courtyard of large tilting headstones that one finds in so many old British graveyards. A sense of history fell upon us as did the gaze of two more players, one of whom was embedded on a plinth and the other within a small knoll both outside the church grounds. We wondered what they might be making of this whole thing, of tourists wandering about their grounds, generating the revenue that would keep the historic place intact. What would Walpole, himself a man of position and privilege who served at the pleasure of the public, think or be thinking about an art installation that brought the public to and in support of his home?
At the End of the Day
For the latter questions, there were no answers to be had only more questions about what history had wrought and what lessons might be
learned that could be applied to contemporary
events and settings.
Are we, as Gormley suggests, contemplative beings who interrogate the surface of things when in fact we are forged out of the natural
and political ground from which our history arose? Or are we truly nothing more than the “cast” of players, who reside in mass at the
same level of existence and are not or ever capable of or willing to face one another about what lies above or below the surface of things?
Obviously, unless one engages in the
interrogation of the surface, asking not only what the surface was but what things lay below or rose above, it would be impossible to be recognized as being contemplatively aware. But is not the real question whether we can be anything but a being who thinks and reflects whether alone or in mass, because it is the surface of things which prompts or “plays” with us, never allowing us to sleep. The phenomenon of things is what prompts us to ask: what is the “real” cause of things, the “Being” and sense of our own being which resides under the surface. In this sense, the casts serve the purpose Gormley intended: they just exist in being, they aren’t engaged in doing – except possibly to cause us to think, to meditate on life, nature, time and objects of art.
However, yet another question arises and that is how the question becomes resolved, how does an answer surface? A person thinks of the marker, the one “cast’ set for all others. That
cast is set within Houghton Hall itself and buried in large part in the earth. Set as such this is not a free man, but a man bound by circumstance of time, history, and politics. Moreover, this cast of a man is not a man of
But is not the real question whether we can be anything but a being who thinks and reflects whether alone or in mass, because it is the surface of things which prompts, or “plays”, with us, never allowing us to sleep.
Opposite:
Various Casts
Around Landscape
Photos
Courtesy of:
WW
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