Pygmalion

A friend once asked Aristide Maillole why the figure of La Montagne has its hand raised. Maillole replied it was to protect her from the wind. Something about that reminds me of myself, but I can't tell if I'm more like the artist or his art. I have to admit the gesture of protecting oneself from what one cannot feel is attractive. Any gesture of vulnerability is, but especially those that are pure and without the underpinning of intent. What I also like is the way Maillole turned lead into a shape through which to contemplate the shapeless. It reminds me of the story of three Buddhist monks watching a flag in the wind. The first notes how beautifully it moves. The second that it's not the flag moving but the wind. The third that it's neither the flag nor the wind, but their minds. Plus one other: the monk who awakes from dreaming he was a butterfly with such vividness he isn't sure now whether he's a monk who dreamed he was a butterfly or a butterfly dreaming he's a monk. So when I see La Montagne it looks as much to me like a sculpture of wind. The woman's the frame.