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Richard Jernigan -> RE: My photo of the week 47+ (Sep. 10 2012 17:11:42)
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quote:
ORIGINAL: Anders Eliasson
I follow you, but at the same time, the boat is very organic and not specially geometric. Boats have very few straight or parallel lines. Thats what make them so beautifull.
To a mathematician/physicist/engineer like me curves can be geometric when they have a certain rhythm. And yes, boats. One of the most beautiful objects I have ever seen is the Gokstad ship at the Viking ship museum at Bigdoy in Oslo. Perfectly utilitarian and sublimely beautiful.
After my son and I had seen the ships my family were at a dinner party of my wife's relatives in Oslo. The wealthy and feared old aunt asked my 12-year old son where he had been. When he told her, the aunt said,"Those men were so cruel! When I was a schoolgirl we went to see the ships. When I thought of those men, I trembled! How did you feel when you saw the Gokstadskip?"
My son glanced at me. I gave the faintest nod of assent. He said,"My father and I thought that in the summertime we would like to go to England in it."
The old aunt knew that our ancestor had gone from Denmark to England with King Sweyn Forkbeard, and returned to stay in England with his son Knut [Canute, to the English] as one of his huskarls.
A week later my son was invited to sail with the Norwegian Navy cadets from Sandefjord to Stavanger in Christian Radich, another beautiful ship. It was between Christmas and New Years. The weather was brisk and brilliantly clear. They put him to work, helping to work the ship. I envied him.
RNJ
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