Bargue Figure Copy #13

Unlucky #13! Alright, this may not be the greatest copy I've ever done, but I was feeling pretty lucky just to be standing behind the easel for an hour to get a little drawing in and re-center. But my eyelid is doing that weird and annoying twitching thing today, which means I could probably use a nap.

I'm thinking this guy is holding one of those old-fashioned oil lamps they used to use (either that or a seashell)? Either way, my mind is on the sea. I finished reading Moby Dick about a week ago, so I know all about the special whale oil they put in those lamps: “For God's sake, be economical with your lamps and candles! not a gallon you burn, but at least one drop of man's blood was spilled for it.”  Whew. Honestly, I haven't had so much trouble finishing a book since I  read The Hunchback of Notre Dame in 10th grade and ended up quitting a mere 20 pages from the end--I just couldn't take it anymore (and I needed to start writing a book report, so I just looked up the ending on spark notes... shhhh, don't tell). 

Well, Moby Dick was a monster of a book (and a monster of a whale). I don't know how many hundreds of pages of detailed descriptions of the author's anatomical renderings of the different kinds of whales in the sea, every painting of a whale he had ever seen, and how to butcher a massive sea creature while at sea, etc, etc, I suffered through. I read it on a Kindle, so I really don't know, but I did it. And I probably would have quit, but what kept me going was that the book was peppered with these beautiful, poetic thoughts that honestly made it worth carrying on through the rest.

I'll leave you with a few favorites, so you can get right to the good stuff ;)

There is a wisdom that is woe; but there is a woe that is madness. And there is a Catskill eagle in some souls that can alike dive down into the blackest gorges, and soar out of them again and become invisible in the sunny spaces. And even if he for ever flies within the gorge, that gorge is in the mountains; so that even in his lowest swoop the mountain eagle is still higher than other birds upon the plain, even though they soar.

Ignorance is the parent of fear.

Consider the subtleness of the sea; how its most dreaded creatures glide under water, unapparent for the most part, and treacherously hidden beneath the loveliest tints of azure. Consider also the devilish brilliance and beauty of many of its most remorseless tribes, as the dainty embellished shape of many species of sharks. Consider, once more, the universal cannibalism of the sea; all whose creatures prey upon each other, carrying on eternal war since the world began. 

Consider all this; and then turn to the green, gentle, and most docile earth; consider them both, the sea and the land; and do you not find a strange analogy to something in yourself? For as this appalling ocean surrounds the verdant land, so in the soul of man there lies one insular Tahiti, full of peace and joy, but encompassed by all the horrors of the half-known life. 

There are certain queer times and occasions in this strange mixed affair we call life when a man takes this whole universe for a vast practical joke, though the wit thereof he but dimly discerns, and more than suspects that the joke is at nobody's expense but his own.

See how elastic our prejudices grow when once love comes to bend them. 

Well, I could probably keep going for a while, but I'll stop there. I like to think I could have been friends with old Herman. Such beautiful thoughts. Thanks for writing them down, old chap ;)