Stanford

Stanford University Campus is an enclave of Palo Alto, basically a city of it's own, called, understandably - Stanford. Home to Rodin Sculpture Garden, it is a natural for a blog dedicated to the beauty of human body.

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A little know but very original New Guinea Sculpture Garden is located in a hard to find remote oak and cedar grove in front of one of Stanford dormitories - as remote as it can possibly be in a small town surrounded by another small town. Still, Stanford is so confusing that it sometimes feels like Bermuda triangle, with no obvious way to get from one point to another, or out of the town altogether. Luckily,  American government gave a great gift to all mankind and it's drivers -  the navigation system.

According to the Sculpture Garden home page, during the summer of 1994, 10 master carvers from Papua New Guinea created a set of carved wood and stone sculptures for this permanent garden.

 

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Rodin Sculpture Garden. Couple of miles from New Guinea Sculpture Garden, and worlds apart apart in aesthetics, cultural heritage, and recognition. One - familiar, acceptable, a quintessential part of western culture, the other - strange, mysterious, a little scary, and funny...
 

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Other examples of the beauty of human body, or it's parts...
 

Two Sphinxes near Stanford Memorial

 

 

 

"Large Metamorphic Venus", by William Turnbull, London 1983. Venus main assets are greatly diminished.

"Making Hay". by Tom Otterness, was on loan in 2002,  installed not far from Stanford Dish. The figures look like female to me, and while not exactly topless and busy at work, they  emit beauty and power.

<Click photos to enlarge>