I’ve not seen, in my life, too many sculptures that have made too great of an impression on me. I guess I’m more often moved by paintings and drawings than by the more physical arts.

But my friend Jill shared this image on her Facebook page today, and I found it quite stunning.

It’s a sculpture from Philadelphia called Freedom. The artist is Zenos Frudakis, and this is some of what he had to say about it:

“I wanted to create a sculpture almost anyone, regardless of their background, could look at and instantly recognize that it is about the idea of struggling to break free. This sculpture is about the struggle for achievement of freedom through the creative process.”

I tend to be a fairly literal person, so that might have something to do with why this resonated. It is such a powerful, yet straightforward, depiction of the concept of freedom. This is someone literally waking up and breaking free. And the figure who is finally free really shares the joy of freedom – especially in contrast from the first, mummified figure.

Next time I’m in that area, I’m going to make a point of checking this out – not something I often say about sculpture.

- My name is Jon Friesch, and I wrote this post.