“This piece is named after a book, which is arguably the most important scientific treatise written in the last two thousand years. All scholars across the globe in countless languages, and different regions studied this book to understand the nature of the spherical universe – which included the celestial sphere endlessly rotating around the motionless, spherical Earth,” newcomer Jon Whitfill brilliantly explains. “The fascinating thing about this wonderful tome is that almost all of it has been disproven in the past couple of hundred of years. The originator of this treatise, an astronomer named Claudis Ptolemy, knew that there was something wrong with his perfectly circular and spherical model of the universe, but no educated scholar could deal with the fact that heavens weren’t built with perfect circles and perfect spheres.” Counted among those resistant scholars is Whitfill, himself. A science “nerd” and physics teacher for over a decade, he continues, “I guess, I, myself, hold some of these prejudices against ellipses and other ovular forms that ancient scholars held. There is something about the circle, and a spinning circle forming a spherical shape that just makes my heart sing.” Almagestum stands 10 feet tall and is fabricated from powder-coated, welded steel. “This piece is everything about my earliest roots on display and I am proud to have it, here, on display among such a fine cadre of sculptures and artists.”
Almagestum I by Jon Whitfill
