Trails we leave behind
You can barely recognise the faces when you look at the horses’ backs to notice that horsemen are riding into an imaginary distance. They ride so quickly that the horses elongate and are reduced to abstract lines like a still shot in a video and its blurry edges.
This is what one observes when entering the Antonio Sciortino gallery at MUŻA, the National Museum of Art in Valletta, a sculpture called Speed, one of the Maltese sculptor’s declared favourite pieces. His aim was to capture the movement and energy of speed, a favourite theme among futurist artists of the turn of the last century who rejoiced at a world that was literally picking up speed with the Industrial Revolution, the first flights and the early versions of the modern car.
Speed is a work that symbolises also our life, as we race at a quickened pace through this mystery called life. As we juggle all that life has to offer – our responsibilities, our work and leisurely activities – we rush and gallop quickly into the distance, looking ahead into – more often than not – unsure destinations.
The horse is a powerful symbol of that part in us that is transcendent. Though we are made of the earth and to the earth at some point return, our hearts and minds levitate and reach out into the distance. We rush forward towards that which we desire.
In the Scriptures and in literature, the horse is a symbol of humanity’s conquering power, an animal that when ridden in battle provided the edge towards victory. In Greek mythology, Poseidon, the god of the sea and earthquakes, gives the horse to humanity as a gift of supremacy that made humans god-like. It is rather curious though that Athena, goddess of wisdom and wise counsel, would gift humanity with the bridle through which this force would be controlled, subjugated with measure and given a direction.
Perhaps the most important feature in Sciortino’s work is not really the front of the sculpture, which is more figurative, but rather the back, which dissolves into abstract lines. It is as if the horses’ brute force is slowly brought to a halt, a stillness that brings forth the trails left behind. While the horses look forward, our eyes are taken backwards, where we are invited to capture what the trail the horses leave behind them.
At a funeral I recently attended I noticed how there are moments where the focus becomes not so much about the destination but the trails the person left behind while racing forward into life. When we stop to think about a person who has just passed away, we call to mind what that person left behind in our hearts.
Trails are more than just forensic evidence of the path taken. They speak of the quality of the journey we made, the fruits of our efforts and the effects that our actions and general attitudes in life leave behind among the people whom we have had the blessing to share a life with.
While we usually ask ourselves “where am I heading?”, perhaps it is equally important to be able to bring forth the question “what am I leaving behind?”. Progress could perhaps be measured not just by the distance covered but by the trajectory taken. In the larger scheme of things, legacy becomes as important if not more essential than the targets we so eagerly run towards.
ALEXANDERZAMMIT@GMAIL.COM