Gone to Sanctuary: From the Sins of Confusion - Softcover

Kiewit, John S.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 088496423X ISBN 13: 9780884964230

Publisher: Capra Press, 1997

Synopsis

Kiewit, John S.

About this title

Review:

The theme of Gone to Sanctuary's photographs is the Old West seen in the waning light of a simpler time. The color and black and white pictures present natural and man-made subjects that evoke, in the author's mind, a beauty and epic grandeur that can still be discovered. The photographs are matched with quotations from the author's journals, as well as some from authors such as Steinbeck, Kerouac and Muir. Kiewit also cites inspirational sources including the Bible, Persian proverbs, and Chinese philosophers. This book can be viewed from three different lenses: the photographs, the quotations, and their mating. In one sense the pictures of nature and nostalgic scenes inspire the viewer to dissect the images as an art student would the tints of Titian and Tintoretto. The pictures that conveyed sanctuary for me conjured images of the lost days of 19th century literature - "the days that are no more," in Tennysonian tones. In the Paso Robles, California, picture (all photographs are captioned with the place of capture) a gnarled tree stands aloof on a bleak hill "as if craving alms of the sun" in Emily Bronte's tortured tree in Wuthering Heights. Birch trees on Colorado's Highway 145 held the same sway as the snowy birches Onegin passes on the way to Tatyana's dacha in Pushkin's Eugene Onegin. The swirls of red, orange and purple gilded clouds in the early morning sky in the picture from Gonzales, California, summon Emily Dickinson's, "I'll tell you how the Sun rose/A Ribbon at a time/The Steeples swam in Amethyst." The Hilton Creek, California, picture with its Gothic arches of blossoming trees reminds me of Lucy Maud Montgomery's freshness when Anne renames the scenes on the way to Green Gables. The quotations are snippets of wanderlust that can exist independent of the pictures. Irony is often used: "Certain places seem to exist mainly because someone has written about them" - Joan Dillon. There are philosophical ones: "The difference between landscape and landscape is small, but there is a great difference between the beholders" - Ralph Waldo Emerson; inspirational ones: "The journey is the reward" - Tao saying; wisdom pieces: "The bare uncompromising face of the land is too much for us to behold, and so we clothe it in myth, sentiment, and imposed expectations" - Robert Finch; enigmatic ones: "You cannot travel in the path/Before you have become the path/Itself"- Buddha; and anemic ones: "Never mind. The mountains are calling..." - John Muir. Matching the pictures with quotations seems more a function of ones' zoom lens than anything else. The developing degree of closeness depends on the viewer's experience. The relationship of the quotation "Traveling is seeing: it is the implicit that we travel by," - Cynthia Ozick to metal corrugated siding in the picture from Coos Bay, Oregon, demands mental high speed traveling. This work of the heart is sometimes flawed, as are some pieces of great art. Oscar Wilde's quotation, "The true mystery of the world is the visible, not the invisible," paired with orange colored trees against a background of green trees (Jacob Lake, Arizona) is not a remarkable piece of imaginative linkage. The picture Garropta, California, looks like any other portrayal of a rugged coastline. Even though artistic license is granted, the expression "sins of confusion" in the subtitle (subtitles usually clarify the contents) is unintelligible to me. These minuscule mars aside, Gone to Sanctuary is an expansive book of reflections. The reader will find a simular joy in it as Quasimodo did from holding the rescued gypsy up to the applauding crowd high atop Notre Dame's great bell tower and shouting, "Sanctuary, Sanctuary." -- From Independent Publisher

About this edition

• Publisher: Capra Press
• Publication date: 1997
• ISBN 10: 088496423X
• ISBN 13: 9780884964230
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 251
• Illustrator: Photos By John S. Kiewit