The ancient Greeks gave a lot of thought to frozen moments. Their notion of philosophy was rooted in physics, especially the physics of moving things. When Aristotle wrote that Thales had named water as the first principle, the original state of everything we know, he elaborated that to mean any change in material state - like the change from water to ice. As you can see in Dori's photograph of a jet fountain at the Milwaukee art Museum (2008), when water becomes ice it expands. 
Irving Penn's 1977 image of frozen foods (blueberries, corn, carrots, aparagus, peas and raspberries) is a sculpture and also a demonstration of physics. The expansion of the foods as they froze was contained by cardboard boxes that have been removed, leaving behind a picture of frozen movement.
Irving Penn's 1977 image of frozen foods (blueberries, corn, carrots, aparagus, peas and raspberries) is a sculpture and also a demonstration of physics. The expansion of the foods as they froze was contained by cardboard boxes that have been removed, leaving behind a picture of frozen movement.
The unidentified Sea of Ice is an early color photograph, made by the Frenchman Leon Gimpel in 1911. Here is a vision of the power of water to evoke awe and fear, emotions the Greeks intuited so long ago.
2 comments:
What has always awed me is the sound that ice makes in nature. I love to stand still and listen.
What made me to think of Aristotle was the uspide down icicles in the fountain. It is difficult to imagine how that happens in time.
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