Figure 1 – Shadows cast by a bench on the ground in midwinter, Lincoln, MA. (c) DE Wolf 2019

I took the image of Figure 1 with my ever-ready IPhone yesterday. It was a cold, crisp day with excellent light and shadows and I was walking with a friend through the sculpture gardens at the DeCordova Museum in Lincoln, MA. I was struck by the shadows cast by the slats in a bench on a cluster of stones behind. The principal draw to the eye and mind are:, of course, the shadows and their relentless linearity. But beyond that is the way that shadows like some scientific cartographic instrument cling to and define the contours of the Earth. We see through grades of shadow and light, and here the most two-dimensional of structures reveal the essential three-dimensional aspects of the scene.