I think these junks are so beautiful. And I have always thought of them as being something very ancient, very primitive and very frail. Yet I have the feeling that they are as eternal as an autumn leaf which curls up and becomes like a thin brown sea-shell. And remains so for years and years. I marvel at the journey these incredibly frail-looking boats make. When men have been such fools at possibly to knock this world to pieces, so that there may not even be the metal boats we have, then – if people survive – these wooden boats will come again. To me they are at once fragile and eternal.
As a study, this junk would be very wrong. It is the fragility of this shell-like shape held hard on these rocks which to me is the wreck of my early hope. And I like to think that this light which travels all the way round and gives it this shape is symbolic of the fact that though one may be a wreck, one has attempted to do something. That in itself is a sacred thing and one’s duty.
Walk to the Moon - the Story of Albert Houthuesen, The Putney Press 2008
I think these junks are so beautiful. And I have always thought of them as being something very ancient, very primitive and very frail. Yet I have the feeling that they are as eternal as an autumn leaf which curls up and becomes like a thin brown sea-shell. And remains so for years and years. I marvel at the journey these incredibly frail-looking boats make. When men have been such fools at possibly to knock this world to pieces, so that there may not even be the metal boats we have, then – if people survive – these wooden boats will come again. To me they are at once fragile and eternal.
As a study, this junk would be very wrong. It is the fragility of this shell-like shape held hard on these rocks which to me is the wreck of my early hope. And I like to think that this light which travels all the way round and gives it this shape is symbolic of the fact that though one may be a wreck, one has attempted to do something. That in itself is a sacred thing and one’s duty.
Walk to the Moon - the Story of Albert Houthuesen, The Putney Press 2008