Remembering B.K.S. Iyengar |
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September 2, 2014, Volume 61, No. 03 |
After B.K.S. Iyengar was created in 1978 by Robert M. Engman, one of Penn’s most prolific sculptors. The sculpture is on long-term loan from Marian & Marvin Garfinkel and ever since 1988 it has resided atop the Morris Arboretum’s step-fountain, where originally there was a chestnut tree that fell to blight.
After B.K.S. Iyengar is not a portrait in the usual sense. Dynamic geometric shapes embody the radiant spirit of Professor Engman’s friend, the Indian yoga master B.K.S. Iyengar whose performance at the Arboretum (Almanac September 13, 1988) demonstrated through motion and stillness the “incredible control, wisdom and gentleness and concern for life” that inspired the lyric bronze that crowns the step-fountain.
Three circles and a square intersect one another, creating both open and closed spaces. Some viewers see parallels between the sculpture’s central axis and mirrored halves and the symmetry of the human body. Another casting of this bronze sculpture is in the collection of the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, DC.
B.K.S. Iyengar, the yoga guru whose teachings helped popularize yoga in the United States, died in Pune, India on August 20 at the age of 95. He had started practicing yoga after a series of childhood illnesses left him weak. He started teaching yoga in the 1930s and in 1952 his practice of concentration and carefully arranged postures gained a global audience. His 1966 book, Light on Yoga, helped introduce yoga to the United States. He continued to practice yoga into his 90s. In 2004, Time magazine named him one of the 100 most influential people.
Twenty-six years ago this month, the Morris Arboretum unveiled the bronze sculpture After B.K.S. Iyengar (above) by Robert Engman. At that time the Victorian step-fountain had just been restored and water flowed there for the first time in 60 years. Professor Engman, who was then co-chair of fine arts and chair of the graduate program in sculpture at Penn, paid tribute to the “balance and strength” of the then 70-year old yoga master who performed yoga at the dedication. The landscape architects integrated the design into the setting.
In Penn’s Chemistry Building, there is one of the first of the three sculptures Robert Engman did in honor of B.K.S. Iyengar (Almanac January 18, 2000). The cast aluminum mobile, After Iyengar, is suspended in the lobby of the 1973 Wing; it was made in 1976, followed by two copies of After B. K. S. Iyengar, one at the Hirschhorn in Washington, DC and the other, the bronze at the Morris Arboretum.
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Drawing by J. Coe, Coe, Lee, Robinson and Roesch Landscape Architects |
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