Function,
Years ago whilst reading St Exupery a statement he made really taught me something. This was, and I hope I remember it correctly, that when you admire a painting or a sculpture you are not admiring the inanimate object but you are admiring the mind of the person who created it!.
To take it a bit farthur then we are admiring their creators and their operators whilst observing this inanimate object.
George Orwell in his essey on Salvador Dali talked about a wall that was well built and structured but was keeping people in a concentration camp as apposed to a hastily built wall, not well constructed but was preventing a village being washed away. This was a good wall so he draws the conclusion that for a thing to be celebrated it’s function should be acknowledged. By the way he considered Dali as excreble though a good “penman” due to his tendancy to degrade things.
So we remember the heros but perhaps not so the “bad hats” and I think this is just!
The function therefore is to remind us we are midgets on the shoulders of giants and if we know where we come from we can continue the dreams of the “good hats”
please excuse my spelling!
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