TUESDAY PHOTOGRAPHMetropolitan Museum of Art, New York City

This handsome head of a Greek was sculpted twenty-five-hundred years ago.


From India (Uttar Pradesh), this 5th century Standing Buddha Offering Protection embodies the qualities of inner calm and stillness. The missing right hand would have made the abhaya-mudra gesture, imparting reassurance and banishing fear...as much needed now as when the statue was carved fifteen hundred years ago.(Clicking on an image enlarges it.)

WHAT MOVED ME MOST in the museum was not the fine art or the artifacts but the man in the wheelchair who moved slowly about the the special exhibit rooms. He was obviously exhausted by the effort of moving from one painting or sculpture to the next, but he just as obviously thought the effort was worth it. He could hardly raise his head enough to see some of the paintings, but he kept doing it. Sometime he could see something only by looking at it sideways, but he looked with concentration. One time his head dropped to his chest for at least five minutes, and he appeared to have fallen asleep. But he was resting. After the rest he moved on to look at something else. I may forget some of the art, but I won't forget him.