You are currently browsing the tag archive for the ‘Statue’ tag.
Let’s get back to talking about New York City’s enormous sad potter’s field at Hart Island (hey, why are all of my readers leaving?) Well anyway, when we left off, we had explained that the island is rich in poignant, important-to-remember narratives. For example, the island’s history strongly contextualizes mistakes made early in the 1980s HIV crisis (not that we’ll ever have another viral pandemic hideously mismanaged by pro-big business apparatchiks in national government). How can we draw attention to this history and properly memorialize the souls whose mortal remains are interred there?
As an artistic exercise, I thought about what sort of memorial would fit a small coastal island next to one of the world’s busiest ports. Despite advocacy by the Hart Island Project, a nonprofit organization (which also helps family members locate graves and works to beautify the site) , it is still difficult to visit the island, so the monument needs to be visible from the water or the coast. However, New York is already a chaotic place! We don’t need any more giant light beacons or 100 meter tall green ladies (although if you know of a friend for Lady Liberty, maybe let me know in the comments).
There is a sort of building from the past which fits all of these criteria perfectly: a lighthouse! Most of New York’s original lighthouses have been retired or are now cultural sites/tourist spots instead of working maritime devices. I am sure we could fit a memorial sculpture in (in fact my favorite New York memorial is exactly such a thing), but how would we make it obvious that it is a monument to victims of HIV?
As a preliminary attempt, I designed this lighthouse in the shape of a virus. I painted it a cheerful pink to make it pop-out from the muted coastline colors of Hart Island, and of course to call attention to the unhappy stigmatization of queer communities which made the ravages of AIDS so much worse than what should have been.
Model for Hart Island AIDS Cemetery Memorial (Wayne Ferrebee, 2019)
Let me back up slightly and explain this somewhat peculiar model. The base is largely irrelevant (it is meant to illustrate that the lighthouse/sculpture needs to be landscaped into an appropriate vantage point on the old AIDS cemetery on Hart Island). There is, however, one important landscape feature which doesn’t read very well in this little diorama: I hoped that the pathway from the main path over to the memorial plaque at the base of the lighthouse/sculpture might be a site where mourners and interested entities could place mementos. I thought if these were all the same color (a chromatic convergence easily accomplished with an inexpensive vat of enamel) it would make the overall presentation more powerful and emotional. I chose pink since it is a sacred color to the LGBTQ community (I also thought the light beacon might be pink as well), however there are other virtues to pink. It is visually bold and highly visual, however it conveys renewal, joy, and beauty. It is an unusual memorial color for an unusual memorial. But it is just an idea (pink is also one of my favorite colors). Black, white, or rainbow would all work too and each of those options also have many strong supporting reasons.
A virologist might point out that this actually a bacteriophage (or actually an abstracted symbolic likeness of one). That is entirely correct. I wanted this to be a symbolic likeness so as to not have people’s final resting place overshadowed by an overly realistic version of the disease which killed them. in the past, such a memorial would probably have had robed allegorical deities and subdued personifications of Death and suchlike figures (in the manner of the extremely beautiful USS Maine monument at Columbus Circle), however in the modern world I don’t think we have many (or any) sculptors capable of such exquisite figurative work, plus such a sculpture would fail to feature the component of hard-won medical knowledge which needs to be central to this monument.
Speaking of which, why have a monument at all? I am sure there are readers thinking this is all “too much” or something we don’t need in a world of monetary woes and immediate problems. I am more sympathetic with such a point of view than you might expect from someone designing abstruse neoteric memorials! However I think we really DO need pandemic memorials. Consider the 1918 Spanish Flu pandemic. We swept it under the rug and moved on with jazz age excess as fast as possible. In doing so we forgot about the critical lessons of the Spanish Flu (to say nothing of its victims and its stringent hardships), and that was obviously a terrible mistake. There are, of course, even more victims of Spanish flu than there are AIDS victims right there at Hart Island. Maybe we actually need a comprehensive viral pandemic monument to honor them and the AIDS victims, and the souls who have suffered and perished in the continuing coronavirus pandemic. That final post of this three-part series will have to wait though (since I need to get back to my studio).
In the mean time, please take care of yourself. Be safe and be of stout heart. Hart Island reminds us that these terrible times have happened before (how could we have forgotten??) but it also reminds us that the pain and loss and suffering have all been endured before and that we grieved and kept moving forward. Perhaps that is the real secret to navigating treacherous passages which are memorialized in funeral monuments.
Oh, one more thing. Please leave your comments and opinions below. The more points of view presented, the better that memorials are able to represent all sorts of different viewpoints!
The Euthydikos Kore, ca. 500 BCE
I have been fretting about the post I wrote last week concerning the polos, a minimally-adorned cylindrical crown which was worn by certain goddesses of the Greek pantheon. One of several mysteries about the polos is how it went from being normal (?) feminine headwear of the Mycenaean world to something worn only by goddesses from the 5th century onward. Mycenaean civilization was swept away by cataclysm around 1100 BC. The 5th century occurred in, um, the 5th century BC. So was anybody wearing these things during the intervening 600 years? It is as though one noted that Western women of the early 15th century AD wore hennins but nobody wears them now except for magical fairytale beings (which, come to think of it, is completely true).
There is no fashion guide of Archaic Greek ladies’ style to answer this question, but we do have a mighty trove of data in the form of korai statues. The kore was a sort of idealized statue of a perfect Greek maiden wearing heavy draperies and an enigmatic empty smile (“kourai” is the plural of the word “kore” which means “maiden”). There are many of these statues in existence, since the Greeks apparently presented them to great temples as a sort of religious tribute (and as a status competition between leading citizens). Additionally the statues were esteemed by collectors of subsequent ages so they didn’t suffer the same level of destruction as some other sorts of statues from two-and-a-half-millenia ago.
Kore of Lyons (540s BC, Athens)
Unfortunately, contemporary classics and art scholars have some big unanswered questions about the korai statues. Were they meant to represent goddesses outright? Some kore statues have garb or items which were later regarded as symbolic of divinity (like the polos, as seen in the “Kore of Lyons” above). Yet, the statues have a somewhat different tone than votive statues of the proud goddesses of ancient Greece. They are softer and less assertive than the goddess statues and, even though the korai represent perfect female beauty as construed by an Archaic-era Greek sculptor, the statues are less concerned with fertility and nudity than are goddess statues. Perhaps they are statues of a transitional goddess such as Persephone or Semele (both of whom had mortal aspects). Another school of thought holds that they are divine attendants which embody general maidenly ideals–as would a group of priestesses or votaries. This explains why they sometimes have divine accoutrements but lack more specific iconography or identification. There is also a school of thought that the statues are simply “maidens” from a time when the more rigorous traditions of the Greco-Roman pantheon were coalescing.
So I have failed to answer any questions about the polos (maybe there is a reason nobody talks about these things), however we have looked at some lovely statues from a looooong time ago and we have learned something about the figurative sculpture of Archaic Greece in the era leading up to the Golden Age. This in turn is relevant, because the Kourai (and their male counterparts the kouros/kouroi statues) are arguably the main antecedent to Western figurative sculptural arts. European Sculptors have lingered for long centuries in the shadow of Ancient Greece. Whatever these statues are, we are indebted to them.
I’m sorry. November is flying by on russet wings and still I have posted no photos of autumn color! i meant to write about beautiful autumn foliage, but, with one thing or another, I never managed to get out of New York. So…the only thing to do was to head out to my garden in Brooklyn and take some leaf pictures at home.
Autumn gardens have their own chaotic beauty of fallen leaves, brown spots, and jagged red vines. Plus it has been warm this year so there are still plenty of flowers.
However the queen of the garden, as always, is the ornamental Kwanzan cherry tree, which is nearly as beautiful covered in glowing yellow leaves as it is in summer wearing bright grass green…or even in spring when it is a lambent pink cloud. I love that tree!
Lifesaver Fountain is a sculpture by Niki de Saint Phalle and Jean Tinguely which was finished/installed between 1991-1993 in Duisberg, Germany. The central element of the fountain–the great phantasmagoric pigeon with the woman clinging to it–is largely the work of Niki de Saint Phalle. The architectural elements—the plinth and the structural stability, come from Jean Tinguely.
Niki de Saint Phalle was the daughter of a French count who came from a family of bankers. During the Great Depression, the count’s personal fortune was wiped out, and he was forced to come to the United States to manage the American branch of the family bank. Niki’s upbringing was thus split between America and France. She was thrown out of Brearley for painting fig leafs on campus statues red. She was a model and a housewife, before entering the arts with controversial statues and architectural depictions of women.
Critics argue about the bird figure in this fountain, asserting that it is an angel or a guruda or a firebird, but just look at the face! This is clearly a pigeon, albeit an unusually powerful and colorful one. It is a humorous juxtaposition, since pigeons are usually drab birds which mess up statues instead of brilliantly colored public art in their own right.
The lifesaver statue is 7.2 meters tall (nearly 23 feet) and it moves to the left and right thanks to the ingenuous plinth. Its undiminished color steams from the fact that it is made of polyester and teflon over steel (although industrial waste and other discarded items are also a part of the composition). The bird figure is clearly a larger than life savior-figure, but it is less clear what the great colorful pigeon humanoid is saving the colorful and heavily contoured woman clinging to its breast from. Is this a statement about rescuing oneself from patriarchy and industrialized society through the power of art? Or is it about the exultant power of imagination to lift us from any circumstance? Whatever the case, the “Lifesavior” certainly rescues the most common urban bird from drabness and it brings a smile to one’s face as well.
Statue of Decebalus (completed 2004, carved stone)
It’s possible that I made a few economic missteps over the years (although, judging by the news, I am not the only one) and, as a consequence, I won’t be spending this August traveling the world. However, even if I am literally trapped in angry sweltering New York, my mind is free to roam the rugged Carpathians and take in the robust forested splendor of Romania. This land was long known as Transylvania (the “crossing forest”) and the modern world has not changed the wooded character of the land. I started to do some research online and in my virtual travels I was stunned to come upon this colossal stone head carved in the living rock of Dacia. This is a carving of Decebalus a king who ruled from 87 AD – 106 AD. Decebalus was a client king of Rome, one of the many annoying and interesting minor sovereigns whom the empire propped up around its borders to act as buffers. Much of Roman history concerns their perennial struggles with these vexatious vassals and the history of Decebalus is no different. Indeed he ended up being the last king of Dacia. His cleverness and pride went too far and Rome crushed him like a bug and absorbed Dacia.
This statue however is presumably meant to evoke Decebalus’ pride and independence (not his defeat and suicide). The head is 40 meters tall (120 feet)—it may be the largest monumental head in Europe. It was crafted by a team of 12 sculptors over 10 years at the behest of an eccentric Romanian businessman, Constantin Drăgan (1917-2008). The statue was completed in 2004 and stares balefully out over the Danube. I love Decebalus’ stony features—which seem little different from an actual rock. I am also predictably impressed at the way the natural rock looks like a crown. Dragan had some curious nationalistic misconceptions about Dacia’s place in history, and it seems this great head was meant to explain/popularize some of the millionaire’s ideas. As often happens with art, the actual work is more ambiguous and interesting…hinting at both greatness and ruin.
Liberty Enlightens the World (Frédéric Auguste Bartholdi, dedicated 1886, copper and steel)
As everyone knows, the Statue of Liberty (which is actually properly titled “Liberty Enlightening the World”) is a colossal neoclassical sculpture which stands in the harbor of my beloved home city, New York, New York. This is the 130th anniversary of the statue arriving in New York from France. The 93 meter tall statue was a lavish gift from the French people, who obviously know how to give astonishing amazing beautiful presents! I won’t get into the elaborate political, engineering, and fundraising history behind the statue’s conception, fabrication, and construction: suffice to say, it has a very complicated story (as one would expect in a monumental joint artistic venture between two of Earth’s greatest nations).
I will note that the statue has greatly overshadowed its creator, Frédéric Auguste Bartholdi—which seems inconceivable today when most art is an afterthought to the virulent self-aggrandizement of art world personalities. If something similar were attempted now we would probably end up with a 90 meter tall statue of Jeff Koons…or of some part of his anatomy (though I shudder to write that down, lest I give him any ideas).
A Statue by Bartholdi of Bartholdi with the Bartholdi statue that made him famous (OK, maybe he did have SOME self reflective self-promotional flair)
Bartholdi was an Alsatian and a freemason. He studied architecture and then served in the disastrous Franco-Prussian War (a conflict when the excesses of the Second Empire came back to haunt France—and a war which provided dark foreshadowing for the great industrial wars of the twentieth century). Bartholdi conceived of the statue as a tribute to democracy and freedom just after the American Civil War—when France was under the dictatorial regime of Napoleon III. Because of the authoritarianism and inequality of the time, the idea was shelved until after the Prussians drove this second Napoleon into exile and ushered in the third republic.
Although before Lady Liberty he designed a colossal statue for the entrance to the Suez Canal…
The Statue of Liberty is so universally iconic that it is hard to look at as a work of art—which is a shame because it is very lovely. The fluid Roman robes belie the practical architecture beneath. Atop the statue is a glowing crown of radiant beams—the neoclassical symbol for divinity. The enigmatic face is simultaneously stern and compassionate (though it is said that Bartholdi based it on his mother which might explain these juxtaposed emotions—and the very human tenderness with which the artist wrought the giant metal face).
It is frustratingly difficult to find pictures of other Bartholdi sculptures. I see here that he created a work titled “Genius in the Grasp of Misery” which sounds incredibly relevant and germane as I scrabble piteously for rent, but sadly I can’t find any photos of it. He designed a fountain “The Little Vintner of Colmar” which features a handsome youth drinking a never-ending stream of wine. The statue is as delightful as its description and was a gift from the city of Colmar to the city of Princeton New Jersey…What was going on in the nineteenth century that cities were all giving art to each other? It seems like an amazing trend which has passed.
The Little Vintner of Colmar (Frederic Auguste Bartholdi, 1869, bronze)
Speaking of which, it occurs to me, that I have never thanked the French people for their far-sighted generosity. Allow me to do so now! Everyone here loves the statue and we deeply love our beautiful exasperating intelligent friends across the Atlantic (even if it sometimes seems like we are at odds). Vive la France et merci pour le cadeau magnifique!
A quarter scale model of the Statue of Liber…Liberty Enlightens the World in Paris France–it’s even on a miniature island.
From 600 BC until 146 BC Carthaginian civilization vied with Greco-Roman civilization to control the Mediterranean in a series of increasingly bitter wars. Ultimately Rome was completely victorious in the great contest: the Carthaginian territories in North Africa and Iberia became Roman territories and the city of Carthage was destroyed and the ground sowed with salt. Rome sat about effacing Carthaginian language, culture, and art from the world. To this day nobody can figure out what was actually normal in Carthaginian civilization and what was a crazy bitter smear campaign by the Romans.
Bust of the goddess Tanit found in the necropolis of Puig des Molins. 4th century B.C. Museum of Puig des Molins in Ibiza (Spain
But no matter how greatly the Romans tried, they could hardly destroy everything left over from a vast ancient civilization, and so we have actual Carthaginian artifacts and artworks today. In fact there are many of them, and they tend to be very bizarre and beautiful–but it is difficult to find consensus on what they represent and how they were used.
Bust of the goddess Tanit found in the necropolis of Puig des Molins. 4th century B.C. Museum of Puig des Molins in Ibiza (Spain
That is the loose background for these terracotta statues from the Iberian Peninsula from the 4th and 3rd centuries BC. Back then, Spain was not just Carthaginian territory–in fact it was the top secret source of most of Carthage’s vast wealth–which came from tin mines (tin was a raw material for the bronze which held classical antiquity together).
“Dama de Ibiza” widely considered to be Tanit (ca. 3rd century BC from Ibiza)
These statues seem to be the great goddess Tanit, the dark queen of the heavens. Tanit and her ram-god consort, Ba’al-Hamon, were the principal divinities of Carthaginian civilization. Tanit seems to have evolved from fierce warrior sky goddesses like Astarte (who once was Ishtar at the dawn of civilization) and especially the Ugaritic goddess Anat. Anat was a bloodthirsty and horrifying goddess—myths about her involve all sorts of impaled entities, seven-headed serpents, oceans of blood, fire, grinding up of bodies and such like dark elements (Ugarit was an ancient port in Syria).
Tanit seems to have been a dark goddess as well and she was probably the focus of Carthaginian child sacrifice, assuming such a thing existed and was not a Roman propaganda invention (scholars are fiercely divided about child sacrifice in Carthaginian culture, although I am inclined to side with the archaeologists who believe that it happened). You are beginning to see some of the historiographic problems that Carthaginian scholars and art historians face!
Whatever the case, the sculptures are magnificent and they certainly suit a dark enigmatic sky goddess who thirsts for blood. Look at Tanit’s crown of celestial vegetation and her almond Babylonian eyes! Sometimes when I fall into a strange humor I look at Carthaginian art online and try to grasp what it meant as I enjoy its sinuous lines, mocking smiles, and leonine power, but it always eludes me and ends up filed in my head as a near-eastern cypher. I’ll try to feature some more of it—you’ll quickly see what I mean. In the mean time enjoy (?) Tanit, bloodthirsty sky goddess.
Protesilaus is a figure from Greek mythology. As one of the suitors of Helen of Troy, he was party to the binding alliance between Greek warrior-kings which pulled them all into the Trojan War when she was stolen by Paris. Protesilaus was a king in Thessaly (long a rumored haunt of wild magic, and sorcery run amuck). He brought forty ships full of warriors to the campaign…but there was a problem which nearly foundered the entire Greek effort before it even got started: a dark prophecy stated that the first Greek warrior to leave the boats would also be the first Greek warrior to die in the war. When the war fleet reached the beaches of Troy, nobody wanted to set foot upon Trojan land and incur the prophesied doom. So all the fearless warriors set quaking in their boats.
Finally, Protesilaus had enough of this pusillanimous behavior and he leaped to shore (even though he was newly married and had much to live for). Sure enough, in accordance with binding laws of war narrative, he was killed by the Trojan hero Hector during the first foray of the war—and the prophecy was thus fulfilled (although it should be noted that Protesilaus killed four men before dying at the hands of the greatest Trojan hero—so he went down as a fighter).
Laodamia voor het schilderij van Protesilaus (Pieter Serwouters naar David Vinckboons,1626, engraving)
When his widow Laodamia heard about this, she went mad with grief. Since the two were newlyweds when the war broke out, their love was in its first flower and burned hot and wild. The Gods admired the bravery of Protesilaus and they took pity on his distraught widow. For half an hour, the hero was allowed to return from the underworld to the mortal world to give a more thorough farewell to his wife. Unfortunately (but perhaps not surprisingly) Protesilaus’ brief return from death—followed by a permanent return to the land of the dead–unhinged Laodamia completely. She commissioned a beautiful lifelike sculpture of her dead husband and proceeded to treat it as though it were him.
Her father, baffled as to how to proceed in the face of these terrible happenings, decided to destroy the statue by casting it into a raging fire, but Laodamia could not be parted from her husband a third time and she leapt into the blaze and was burned away. His traumatized subjects built a lavish tomb for him and nymphs planted elms upon it. According to the poetry of antiquity, these trees grew to be the tallest in the world, yet when their tops were high enough to come into eyesight of Troy, the leaves died back and withered away (for the bitterness and sorrow of the dead hero remained even when he and his wife were gone).
Sarcophagus with scenes of Protesilaus and Laodamia (Roman, second century AD, marble)
In the business world it is considered terrible to be the first person to do something truly bold and new. Business leaders pay lip-service to innovators, but, in truth, business schools teach that ideas should be tried out by others first. Wang got nowhere, while the wily Steve Jobs took the best parts of his ideas and made an empire. There is a race to be second. The world’s leaders know not to be brave, but to be sly and calculating. This is prudent counsel (and has been so since before there were stories of the Trojan War), but I wonder if the world might not have more innovation and invention, if the first movers were not punished so brutally.
Manhattan glimpsed from Greenwood Cemetery
The trees are changing color, Halloween is fast approaching, and the day was beautiful—which means today was the perfect time for the annual autumn trip to Greenwood Cemetery, the immense Victorian graveyard at the center of Brooklyn. As always, I was enthralled by the towering specimen trees, 19th century mausoleums, and the rolling moraine landscape, but, also I was decidedly shocked to find the cemetery was different! There was a new addition, and for once, it did not require a pile of fresh dug earth, a crowd of mourners, and a diminution of the human family.
The triumph of Civic Virtue (Frederick William MacMonnies, 1922, Marble) In Greenwood Cemetery in 2013
Instead of a new grave, there was a huge beautiful bright white marble allegorical statue of a nude man standing on top of two writhing mermaids! What happened to bring this twenty foot Greco-Roman hand-carved titan to the quiet midst of my favorite necropolis? Well, I looked up the story (i.e. read the extensive plaque), and discovered that the statue was moved because women obtained the right to vote in the United State. Fans of the constitution will note that the nineteenth amendment was ratified in 1920, two years before “The Triumph of Civic Virtue” was finished by the Piccirilli Brothers (Ferrucio, Attilio, Furio, Horatio, Masanielo and Getulio). What happened?
The Triumph of Civic Virtue (In front of City Hall in 1923)
As it turns out, “The Triumph of Civic Virtue” is probably the most controversial work of art in New York City’s history (certainly it is the most scandalous to be bought with public money). The statue’s bizarre history involves the way power shifts in a democracy, the changing meaning of symbols, and the greatest constant in art—the artist’s eternal inability to cope with deadlines. At the beginning of the twentieth century, the allegorical work was designed by Frederick MacMonnies to stand in front of City Hall in Manhattan and to represent American politics. The handsome and robust figure of Civic Virtue stands triumphantly astride two snaky sea goddesses who represent the two great public temptresses of vice and corruption. However, since the actual marble carvers, the Piccirilli Brothers, were very busy (and artistic creation does not always obey the schedule of small-minded foot-tapping bureaucrats) the statue took a very long time to finish and was delivered years late.
The Triumph of Civic Virtue (in Kew Gardens beside Queens Borough Park in 2002)
The statue was finally completed and installed in front of City Hall in 1922, but by then its era had already passed. Newly empowered women voters hated it for depicting women as semi-human beings who are subordinate, naked, and prostrate at the foot of an armed man (an allegory which seemed all too familiar to them). Not only was it decried as sexist: the classical Greco-Roman aesthetic was at odds with the modern new styles of the roaring twenties. Additionally the manly (but diminutive and lumpy) mayor, Figueroa de Laguardia, did not like looking up at the statue’s muscular backside as he (the mayor) stared out over his city from his office. Together the mayor and the suffragettes exiled the statue to Kew Gardens Park beside Queens Borough Hall where it languished at the center of a fountain for long decades. However even that was not enough to placate the artwork’s detractors who still demanded that it be moved far away from the center of political power in Queens. The great women’s rights crusader Anthony Weiner even suggested that it be sold online on Craigslist! Finally Greenwood cemetery stepped in with a protected public (but not very accessible) space for the statue and with funds for a renovation. The “Triumph of Civic Virtue” was surreptitiously moved to the cemetery in December of 2012.
A side view of the statue shows the nude allegorical figure of vice (or possibly corruption)
I can’t help but feel like the suffragettes might have had a point. Why isn’t civic virtue a lovely & mighty lady like Justice, Temperance, or even Columbia herself. The statue is magnificently carved and executed, but it also looks like a dark fantasy of mermaid abuse. Yet its weird history says more than it does about who we are (and who we were). Queens’ loss is Brooklyn’s gain, and I am happy the statue found a pretty home where my fellow statue lovers and I can regard it up close. “The Triumph of Civic Virtue” is both great, troubling, and hilarious , however, considering the statue’s provenance—from city hall, to a tertiary borough, to an empty cemetery–perhaps it can also be considered empowering.
Virtue is removed from Queens (December, 2012)
Statue of Molly Malone (Jeanne Rynhart, 1988, Bronze)
One of my favorite mawkish songs is “Cockles and Mussels.” Not only is it a stirring melodramatic ballad concerning the sad death of a young Irishwoman, it is probably the only known song to feature ghost mollusks! Let’s review the lyrics:
In Dublin’s fair city,
Where the girls are so pretty,
I first set my eyes on sweet Molly Malone,
As she wheeled her wheel-barrow,
Through streets broad and narrow,
Crying, “Cockles and mussels, alive, alive, oh!”
“Alive, alive, oh,
Alive, alive, oh”,
Crying “Cockles and mussels, alive, alive, oh”.
She was a fishmonger,
But sure ’twas no wonder,
For so were her father and mother before,
And they each wheeled their barrow,
Through streets broad and narrow,
Crying, “Cockles and mussels, alive, alive, oh!”
(chorus)
She died of a fever,
And no one could save her,
And that was the end of sweet Molly Malone.
Now her ghost wheels her barrow,
Through streets broad and narrow,
Crying, “Cockles and mussels, alive, alive, oh!
That seems pretty clear—the cockles and mussels travel beyond the grave with Molly and her ghost is left trying to sell their spirits in the variously sized thoroughfares of Ireland’s capital (even to me, that sounds like a futile business plan—who is the projected customer base here?). The harrowing supernatural drama reminds me that I need to add posts about cockles (which are tiny edible saltwater clams found on sandy beaches worldwide) and mussels to Ferrebeekeeper’s mollusk category.
Beyond her working connection to the vast phylum of mollusks, her sweetness, and her death, little is known concerning Molly Malone. This is ironic since the longstanding international success of the song has made her an unofficial mascot of Dublin and a mainstay of tourism there. Various amateur historians have unsuccessfully tried to link the song with a historical personage to no avail. It seems the ditty was created from imagination by a Scottish balladeer late in the nineteenth century and it was first published in the 1880s in America!
A clean line illustration of Molly for Waltons' Sheet Music to the Song
However the paucity of information has not stopped artists from portraying Molly (as is evident from the pictures dotted through this post). Even if the song was an invention there is a real sense of futility, heartbreak and loss to it. And just think of the poor ghostly shellfish spending eternity being hawked in the in-between neverworld of Dublintown.
The cover of "Sweet Molly Malone" by Mel Fisher and Dave Orchard
ferrebeekeeper 