The project website is now up and running, and today we learned that one of the eggs sent out by the artist, Lissie Poetter, to a surprisingly large number of participants has reached as addressee in far-off Australia.
My own most recent ovular musings have not taken me as far as the Antipodes, the jurneyings of my imagination were more akin to the expedition of Christopher Columbus than of Captain Cook. You will see what I mean...
We confirmed quite quickly that Mondrian's geometry did not admit of anything remotely egg-shaped!
I did, however, discover a new 'favourite painting' (Duinlandschap) from Mondrian's earlier days and it was exhilarating to view a Gerrit Rietveld chair in its proper context.
Remember? Christopher Columbus, having been told that discovering the Americas was no great accomplishment, challenged his critics to make an egg stand on its tip; and, after they gave up, he did it himself by tapping the egg on the table so as to flatten its tip. And so... as I explained in German (we tend to speak her native language more oftem than mine) to my attentive but somehow puzzled daughter... that 'das Ei von Kolumbus' is an expression meaning: 'That which appears to be very difficult but is easy once the trick is known'.
Again language plays its role in my egg-sploration of the broken/unbroken theme. My German is fluent but often incorrect... I should have spoken of 'das Ei des Kolumbus'. This became abundantly clear due to the fact that 'Ei von' sounded to my daughter very much like 'iPhone'.
Hilarity ensued, I learned to respect the genitive case in German. We both decided that when either of us can afford a smartphone it will be named... Kolumbus.
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