Farewell To Orpheus

The sculpture I found was an installment within a fountain in the Park Blocks next to Cramer Hall of Portland State University. Farewell To Orpheus, by Frederic Littman in 1968, is a cast bronze sculpture depicting a reclining woman, her hand outstretched towards something in the distance. She’s lying back, or floating, through what looks to be branches. But given that the sculpture is meant to be surrounded by water, one can assume that she may be floating through seaweed. Currently, there is no water surrounding the statue. The sculpture has a definite sense of movement, almost as if the depicted woman is floating away from where she looks with her hand outstretched. The texture of the cast bronze adds to the effect of making one believe that perhaps this sculpture is meant to be viewed as underwater. Rather that having smooth and definite lines and form, the bronze has an uneven surface that almost looks like smoothed over boiling liquid.

-Enrico Macias-Zepeda