Lingua (sculpture) explained

The Lingua is a sculpture by American artist Jim Sanborn located at the Walter E. Washington Convention Center.

Sculpture

Lingua is composed of two 16' tall cylinders, with text cut with a water jet cutter in Russian, Mandarin Chinese, Ethiopian, French, Spanish, Latin, Greek, and Iroquois.^[1] The texts are historical texts from as far back as 1400 BC.^[2]

The Russian-language section is a quote from Leo Tolstoys 1869 novel War and Peace (Volume 3, Part 1, beginning of chapter XXII).

The Chinese-language section is a piece of Chinese calligraphy work Lantingji Xu written by Wang Xizhi.

References

38.9037°N -77.0234°W

Notes and References

1. Web site: Jim Sanborn: Sculptor, Photographer, Artist. Elonka. 2009-10-18.
2. Web site: Walter E. Washington Convention Center Art Collection . 2009-09-06 . Washington Convention Center Authority . 2009-10-20 . dead . https://web.archive.org/web/20080210100326/http://www.dcconvention.com/artcollection.aspx . February 10, 2008 .