Rodin and the jigsaw puzzle

I needed something small and flat to cover my wine glass (I don't like fruit flies landing in my wine).

I pulled this old Taschen postcard book of Rodin off the shelf. It was just the right size.
Of course I got a bit distracted looking through it while my wine sat unprotected.

It has some pictures of The Burghers of Calais.

I found myself looking at this portrait...

His city has been starved into submission, and he (along with a few others) are offering themselves as a sacrifice that the rest of city might be spared.

I stared, contemplating the poor man's state of mind at the time.
Of course I was also marveling at Rodin's work. Sensitive and powerful, and executed with consummate skill.

I knew about the story behind the piece, and started to wonder how I'd feel differently about the portrait if I knew nothing about it.

Or what if I was mis-informed, and believed the face was reacting to some other turn of events...

Let's say this man has been working on assembling the worlds hardest to do jigsaw puzzle on  his kitchen table.
Puzzles are what he lives for, and he's been working up to this one all his life.
He's been toiling away for several months on the final stages alone, and is nearly finished.
Only this morning his house was cleaned top to bottom, and all the trash was picked up by the trash van for the celebration to come, with all his most fanatical puzzler friends invited...

Almost done, the floor around the table is of course spotless. Now he sees four spaces left in the puzzle, but only three puzzle pieces left in the lid of the box....

So, if that was the story behind this face, would that change my feelings instead of knowing what was really going on?

Of course it would, on an emotional level it wouldn't have nearly the same impact since it would make me feel differently about the person in question and the gravity of the situation.
Although for a few die hard puzzlers I'm sure it would resonate even more!

But I'd still feel the same about it on another level, where I'm just in awe of one person's ability to convey so much expressive form, so artfully, with just a lump of dirt.
 ...............................................

Here's a description from the Wikipedia page on The Burghers of Calais...

"The story goes that England's Edward III, after a victory in the Battle of Crécy, laid siege to Calais, while Philip VI of France ordered the city to hold out at all costs. Philip failed to lift the siege, and starvation eventually forced the city to parley for surrender.

Edward offered to spare the people of the city if any six of its top leaders would surrender themselves to him, presumably to be executed. Edward demanded that they walk out almost naked, wearing nooses around their necks, and carrying the keys to the city and castle. One of the wealthiest of the town leaders, Eustache de Saint Pierre, volunteered first, and five other burghers soon followed suit, stripping down to their breeches. Saint Pierre led this envoy of emaciated volunteers to the city gates. It was this moment, and this poignant mix of defeat, heroic self-sacrifice, and willingness to face imminent death that Rodin captured in his sculpture, scaled somewhat larger than life.

In history, though the burghers expected to be executed, their lives were spared by the intervention of England's Queen, Philippa of Hainault, who persuaded her husband to exercise mercy by claiming that their deaths would be a bad omen for her unborn child."

Oh, incidentally, here's another Burgher...

This one kind of made me think of a leaner version of Marlon Brando's Godfather for some reason...
Oh, and no fruit flies landed in my glass, I'm sure you'll be glad to hear!

.
Click these links to visit my website... SteveWorthingtonArt.com - Sculpture that loves you back
or my Etsy store, CritterVille

.