Page 87 - The Irony Board
P. 87

Into the World


             Carved from without,
             Sculpture to be life-like
             Must look as if it
             Grew from within.

             Growing from within,
             Life to be sculpture-like
             Must look as if it
             Were carved from without.

            A popular irony has to do with life imitating art and vice-versa.
        Gluckman  here  elaborates  that  theme  into  a  paradox  of  internal-
        external  perception.  The  logical  structure  of  irony  is  presented  in
        this  piece  by  means  of  a  stanza-level  word-shuffle.  Life  grows;
        sculpture  is  carved.  It  is  generally  understood  that  sculptural
        representations of organic forms manifest the verisimilitude of life
        best when they appear to have developed as ontogenetically as their
        models.  The  converse  case  is  a  result  of  cultural  norms  of
        masculinity: the ideal male figure in the West is often described as
        craggy, finely-chiseled, firmly molded, hard-as-rock, wind-swept and
        sunbaked. Life, if properly (i.e. fearlessly) lived, will chip away at us,
        knocking off our rough edges and ultimately giving us polish. The
        result  is  a  man  whose  inner  direction  has  given  him  the  outer
        appearance of a work of art.













                                       85
   82   83   84   85   86   87   88   89   90   91   92