Presence
This bust of Marcus Aurelius, produced in the late second century, was acquired by Norway’s National Gallery in 1966. Standing in front of it this morning I was entranced. To call it lifelike is a banal understatement. There is life in it, somehow, and a quality of presence that carries through the centuries. What vitality there can be in marble; and how inadequate the verbiage we leave behind, now, as our putative legacy to posterity is to a single such portrait. The emperor is still young; an adolescent beard is struggling to form. What is striking is his gaze – probing, intelligent, lucid, and not at peace. We are confronted with the face of one alert to the earnestness of existence. It makes me think of a phrase from the Meditations: ‘Do not act as if you had ten thousand years to throw away. Death stands at your elbow. Be good for something while you live and it is in your power’ (IV.17).
