Ekphrasis

Does the riddle of the Sphinx discount humankind crawling on all fours again in a technological rebirth? Glued to our pixelated screens of single-bit colors in geometric arrays, we imagine collective advancement, but we manifest infantilism. There’s no connectivity where electronic isolation is the name of the game. The melting pot is an incongruous mosaic, no colors harmonizing where their outlines suggest order; e pluribus nihil? Only time will tell...

[Gian Lorenzo Bernini, the famed 17th century Italian sculptor, fell in love and had an affair with his assistant’s wife, Costanza. She enraged Bernini by beginning a second affair with his brother, Luigi, which caused Bernini to attack and break two of Luigi’s ribs and to have another of his assistants slash Costanza’s face. Bernini was spared punishment by the intervention of Pope Urban VIII; Costanza was sent briefly to a home for wayward women. The bust Bernini executed of Costanza preserves the perfection he first saw in her, revealing nothing of the fractured life she suffered in the aftermath of their affair.]