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Richard MacDonaldOrpheus Ascending2014
2014
About the Item
Some works of art are exploratory; they ask questions, but offer no answers. Some are the distillation of a lifetime of experience, and the answers they give cannot easily be translated into words. Richard MacDonald’s latest mythological sculpture, “Orpheus Ascending”, is a triumphant work of beauty, depth, and passion. It answers questions that are as old as humanity itself.
The Greeks understood that all human drama pivots on the pervasive and unavoidable experience of loss. It is our vulnerability to loss that heightens the experience of mortality. Our time is limited, our control is limited, and out of this is born the great excitement of human existence. We love with intensity, because we know that our hold is tenuous. Greek mythology revolves around this essential paradox of human life. The love story of Orpheus and Eurydices exemplifies this principle in all it heartbreaking beauty.
Richard MacDonald is drawn again to the beautiful story of Orpheus and Eurydices. When Orpheus’ bride is struck down on their wedding day by a deadly adder, he pleads with the gods to allow him to rescue her. If he fails, he promises they can keep him in Hades too. The gods allow him to try, but with one condition—he must not look back. Of course, in his anxiety for his love, he does glance back to make sure she is following him into the sunlight. At that instant the gods are true to their cruel promise, and Eurydices is pulled back down into the darkness so quickly that her farewell to Orpheus is barely audible. Orpheus is not allowed to cross back into Hades, although he waits in grief on the banks of the river Styx forever pining for his true love.
- Creator:Richard MacDonald (1946, American)
- Creation Year:2014
- Dimensions:Height: 95 in (241.3 cm)Width: 19 in (48.26 cm)Depth: 18 in (45.72 cm)
- Medium:
- Movement & Style:
- Period:
- Condition:
- Gallery Location:Laguna Beach, CA
- Reference Number:
Richard MacDonald
There are artists and there are masters. Richard MacDonald will go down in the history of sculpture as Picasso did painting, as an unequivocal master of the art.
Only a number of people can master craftsmanship, far fewer, the art of the human form. Figurative sculpture is a language MacDonald speaks with astounding fluency, and as with any language, MacDonald’s creative drive is formed from a need to share the universal dialect of the human figure with those who understand it; this is the unique privilege the artist affords his viewers.
MacDonald captures the beauty, romance and essence of the human spirit in motion. Influenced by the expressiveness in the figures of Renaissance master Donatello, the emotional intensity of works by 19th century French sculptor Auguste Rodin, and the power of Michelangelo’s sculptures, MacDonald’s inspirational, sensitive works are precisely of the moment, yet profoundly historic by reference. And they dance rhythmically for all to see — in the leap and grace of the dancer, the power of the athlete, the gesture and passion of lovers, the spirit rises, and MacDonald captures it.
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