This IS NOT A Stone (#63)

Stones can also be a metaphor for literature itself, and actually there is no more beautiful symbol for the book than a stone: in both the world leaves traces and in both history carves its story, and both the book and the stone only reveal their deepest layers of meaning to a thorough and patient observer.

(...) what is so special about stones: 'It is, as it were, a condensed history of the universe, which in its ephemeral form hides the cycle of all matter.
(…)
Only the stones are witnesses of that, and they never let themselves be fully fathomed, just like a good book.

Translated excerpts from a book review in de Volkskrant (date unknown) by Yra van Dijk on Hikaru Okuizumi's "The Stone Witnesses”.

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Number 63 in the continuous series "This IS NOT A Stone"

To watch the previous post in this series follow this link to: 'This IS NOT A Stone #62'

Or start at the beginning: 'Everything In One Stone'

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Choosing this simple, mediocre sand stone in 1986 to be his focal point for meditation and thoughts, artist Jan van Krieken doesn't need much more; a symbol for the slipping of time, a bit of eternity amidst an ever faster moving and changing world.

While investigating and researching the artist automatically arrived at "The Philosopher's Stone", the mysterious substance that alchemists had sought for centuries. Van Krieken found out that they were essentially looking for the same thing as he was looking for by means of the stone in his pond; the pure and the everlasting.

Almost 32 years of observing and photographing that one sand stone. Sometimes covered with snow, sometimes occupied by a bird, or hidden by fallen leaves, protected by ice or serving as a warm bed for a salamander this cycle of change became a metaphore for life itself.