Paintings of the Statue of Liberty

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On this 4th of July weekend, we have a small sampling of paintings of the Statue of Liberty. It was a gift from the people of France and is a monument to freedom and democracy. It is also a symbol of the promise of American opportunity to the immigrants entering via New York harbor.

My grandparents all immigrated to the U.S. at the beginning of the 20th century. They must have seen it, and I'm sure it moved them, but they never mentioned it. They did mention Ellis Island, but to them it was all just a transition from the Old World they had left behind for their new home in the States. The future called.

Inside Lady Liberty

 

The sublime and the ridiculous

Lady Liberty viewed through power lines
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There's only a step from the sublime to the ridiculous, but there's no road leading from the ridiculous to the sublime. - Lion Feuchtwanger

   

Math and viewing

Statue of Liberty viewed from her torch

Thomasina: Every week I plot your equations dot for dot, x’s against y’s in all manner of algebraical relation, and every week they draw themselves as commonplace geometry, as if the world of forms were nothing but arcs and angles. God’s truth, Septimus, if there is an equation for a curve like a bell, there must be an equation for one like a bluebell, and if a bluebell, why not a rose? Do we believe nature is written in numbers?

Septimus: We do.

Thomasina: Then why do your shapes describe only the shapes of manufacture?

Septimus: I do not know.

Thomasina: Armed thus, God could only make a cabinet.

— Tom Stoppard, from the play, Acadia (1993), Scene 3, 37

  

Lady Liberty in France

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Before being shipped to the United states as a gift from France, the Statue of Liberty was assembled in Paris. These pictures are from Messy Nessy, which has more pictures of the construction of the iconic statue.