Dome

Detail, showing upper portion; Cast in a limited edition of seven copies. Other copies may now be found at Princeton University, Cornell University, Stanford University, at Nelson Rockefeller’s Kykuit Gardens, at the sculpture garden at the Musée d’art moderne Lille Métropole at Villeneuve d’Asq (on deposit from the Musée national d’art moderne), the Kunsthaus Zürich, and at the Rijksmuseum Kröller-Müller in Otterlo, the Netherlands. Lipchitz explained his inspiration for Song of the Vowels this way: "I had been commissioned to make a garden statue for Madame de Maudrot for her house at Le Pradet, in the south of France, designed by Le Corbusier. I was entranced by the location, a vineyard with mountains at the background, and since I was still obsessed with the idea of the harp, I decided to attempt a monument suggesting the power of man over nature. I had read somewhere about a papyrus discovered in Egypt having to do with a prayer that was a song composed only of vowels and designed to subdue the forces of nature . . . I cannot explain why the image of the harp and the Song of the Vowels should have come together except that both of them were in my mind at the same moment." Source: Cornell University; Uris Library Historical Tour; http://libecast.library.cornell.edu/uris/index.html (accessed 6/12/2009)