Deer and Deerhound in Mountain Torrent.
"Here an exhausted stag plunges towards a waterfall leading out of a mountain loch pursued by two hounds, one of whom still clings to its ear, while the other is all but submerged in the water. The upturned head and fainting eye of the stag are as pathetic as any Christian martyr, and we can only pity the death of such a sublime creature. Whether death is to come at the hands of the waterfall or the bullet remains unclear. William Scrope, a friend and fellow sportsman of the artist, describes a similar scene in his well-known book, The Art of Deer Stalking. A stag had been turned at bay by the edge of a waterfall:
Just at the edge of the precipice, and as it seemed on the very brink of eternity, the dogs were baying him furiously; one rush of the stag would have sent them down into the chasm, and in their fury they seemed wholly unconscious of their danger. All drew in their breath, and shuddered at the fatal chance that seemed momentarily to take place. "
-- from The Monarch of the Glen: Landseer in the Highlands, Richard Ormond
Sir Edwin Landseer.
(At the Tate Britain)
"[...] It might seem that these modulations of sound carry some connection with the nature of the things they represent, and are not merely arbitrary; because the natural cries of all animals, even of those with whom we have not been acquainted, never fail to make themselves sufficiently understood; this cannot be said of language. The modifications of sound, which may be productive of the sublime, are almost infinite. Those I have mentioned, are only a few instances to shew, on what principle they are built." -- Edmund Burke, A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of Our Ideas on the Sublime and Beautiful(1759), Section XX, The Cries of Animals
SHOFAR?
--BGK.
shofar.
{Rosh Hashana-- the Jewish new year}
"For the shofar of Rosh Hashana, whose purpose it is to rouse the purely Divine in man, no artificially constructed piece of work may be sounded. It must be an instrument in its natural form[naturally hollow], with life given to it by the breath of man, speaking to the spirit of man. For you cannot attain to God by artificial means or by artifice. And no sound which charms the senses, but which does not appeal to man's better self, can raise you to God-- indeed, you might surrender yourself again to your low, base way of living. The pure, unaffected sound of the natural shofar should stir you heart and mind and attune them to the significance and call of its tones.
All naturally hollow horns of clean animals are valid for the shofar of Rosh Hashana except for the horn of the bull, which is linked with the memory, sad for our nation, of the sin of the Golden Calf and which in fact is not called the shofar. One should take, if possible, the bent horn of a ram-- bent, in conformity with the contrite mood of the day evoked by the teruah; of a ram, because it preserves the noble memory of Abraham's sacrifice, the prototype in history of subservience of the self to God." -- Mazhor for Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur, Rabbinical Assembly, New York
drawing edited with photoshop-- Baby Girl Kriegbaum.
"For the shofar of Rosh Hashana, whose purpose it is to rouse the purely Divine in man, no artificially constructed piece of work may be sounded. It must be an instrument in its natural form[naturally hollow], with life given to it by the breath of man, speaking to the spirit of man. For you cannot attain to God by artificial means or by artifice. And no sound which charms the senses, but which does not appeal to man's better self, can raise you to God-- indeed, you might surrender yourself again to your low, base way of living. The pure, unaffected sound of the natural shofar should stir you heart and mind and attune them to the significance and call of its tones.
All naturally hollow horns of clean animals are valid for the shofar of Rosh Hashana except for the horn of the bull, which is linked with the memory, sad for our nation, of the sin of the Golden Calf and which in fact is not called the shofar. One should take, if possible, the bent horn of a ram-- bent, in conformity with the contrite mood of the day evoked by the teruah; of a ram, because it preserves the noble memory of Abraham's sacrifice, the prototype in history of subservience of the self to God." -- Mazhor for Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur, Rabbinical Assembly, New York
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