Knowledge is Power is an 8- by 12-foot bronze of an open book. Faces and figures of 31 philosophers, writers, and scientists emerge from the pages. Located at Rowan University, it is inspired from a quote by Francis Bacon.
Artist Zenos Frudakis chose a book as a metaphor as it has been the traditional form of preserving and transmitting knowledge down through the ages.
As a compositional element, he has the faces and quotes organized around two central figures whom he considers two giants of thought. On the left page is Charles Darwin, and those around him are of an earlier period. On the right page is Albert Einstein, striding from the wall, surrounded by more contemporary figures. Darwin is shown with a finch on his shoulder in a moment which helped him gain insight into evolution. There are some animals from islands he visited in the lower part of his cloak, including a Galapagos turtle, a seal, and a lizard. Additionally, the cast of a prehistoric child’s skull by its nature reinforces Darwin’s ideas on evolution. Einstein, because of the nature of his groundbreaking work, is seen stepping out dimensionally as did his ideas about space/time.
In addition to figures and faces, Mr. Frudakis sculpted elements and statements of dance, art, philosophy, poetry, and science. Statements contradict each other. For example, on the top left page is the statement “Knowledge is Power” and on the top right page is the modifying, contrasting statement “Imagination is more important than knowledge.” At the bottom of the left page is Machiavelli’s statement “The end justifies the means.” Just below that is Emmanuel Kant’s words “Always treat people as ends never as means.”
The million-dollar sculpture was commissioned by Dr. Francesca Shaughnessy, who served as a psychologist for the Philadelphia School District for more than 30 years, in honor of her late brother, Sebastian Cottone, a longtime history professor at Villanova University. They are the figures standing on either side of the open book. It was dedicated on November 14, 2004.
IIMAGES WITH QUOTES:
Alan Turing: 0110000101101001 (binary symbol for AI)
Albert Einstein: Imagination is more important than knowledge. E=MC2
Anne Frank: In spite of everything, I still believe that people are really good at heart.
Beethoven: Fifth Symphony
Churchill: Never never never give up.
Charles Darwin: In the struggle for survival, the fittest win out at the expense of their rivals because they succeed in adapting themselves best to their environment.
Descartes: I think therefore I am.
Di Vinci: drawing of the Vetruvian man
Emerson: Insist on yourself, never imitate..
Francis Bacon: Knowledge is Power
FD Roosevelt: The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.
Galileo: The sun with all the planets revolving around it.
Gandhi: Nonviolence is the greatest force at the disposal of mankind.
Harriet Beecher Stowe: Perhaps it is impossible for a person who does no good to do no harm.
Harriet Tubman: I freed a thousand slaves. I could have freed a thousand more if only they knew they were slaves.
Henry David Thoreau: If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer.
Isadora Duncan: figures of her dancing
John Muir: In every walk with nature one receives for more than he seeks.
Lincoln: A house divided against itself cannot stand.
Machiavelli: The end justifies the means.
Margaret Sanger: No woman can call herself free who does not own and control her body.
Martin Luther King: I have a dream
Niels Bohr: (image on Einstein’s right shoulder made in points representing packets of quantum.) Quote: A physicist is just an atom’s way of looking at itself. Joining Bohr’ head and Einstein’s head is a diagram of an atom.
Neitzsche: There are no facts, only interpretations. / Balloon quote: “God is Dead” in German /
Newton: If I have seen further than others, it is by standing upon the shoulders of giants.
Protagoras: Man is the measure of all things.
Sigmund Freud: The mind is like an iceberg, it floats with one-seventh of its bulk underwater.
Shakespeare: To be or not to be
Socrates: The unexamined life is not worth living.
Susan B. Anthony:Suffrage is the pivotal right.
Rachel Carson: Can anyone believe it is possible to lay down such a barrage of poisons on the earth without it making it unfit for all life?
Thomas Jefferson: All men are created equal.
Thomas Paine: I offer nothing more than simple facts, plain arguments, and common sense.
POETRY WITHOUT PORTRAITS:
Emmanuel Kant: Always treat people as ends never as means.
Dylan Thomas: Do not go gentle into that good night. (placed by King)
TS Eliot: At the still point of the turning world, there the dance is. (placed by Isadora Duncan’s figures)
John Keats: Beauty is truth, truth beauty. (placed near Harriet Tubman)
Emily Dickenson poem line: I died for beauty
Yeats poem next to FDR: Things fall apart, the center does not hold.
JUST IMAGES
Copernicus’ sun-centered universe and his name above it
Part of the “Fundamental Theorem of Calculus”. There is another equation that completes the whole theorem. Now it is a standard topic in freshman calculus. It goes back to Newton, or maybe further, to his instructor Isaac Barrow.
Michelangelo’s Slave
Pi
Symbols of evolution around Darwin: At base, Galapagos Tortoise, lizard, bird, seal, cast of an actual pre-historic child’s skull; on his shoulder is a finch.
Diagrams: architectural images. Alberti (Renaissance) and Parthenon.
Pythagorus Theorum
Golden Section
Near Rachel Carson: Eagle (representing her research with DDT)
