The Summit
Kahlil Gibran- Artist
- Kahlil Gibran
- Title
- The Summit
- Date
- c. 1925
- Medium
- watercolor and pencil on paper
- Dimensions
- Sheet: 11 × 8 1/2 inches (27.9 × 21.6 cm)
- Tags
- Painting
- Credit Line
- Gift of Mary Haskell Minis.
- Accession Number
- 1950.8.14
Gibran created these two watercolors to illustrate his book Sand and Foam (1925). Both works show ethereal figures floating above the earth. The figures, though clearly human, seem to belong to the skies rather than to the ground below. This feeling of existing somewhere in between two worlds, is a central idea in Sand and Foam. In the opening paragraph of that book, Gibran wrote:
I am forever walking upon these shores,
Betwixt the sand and the foam,
The high tide will erase my foot-prints,
And the wind will blow away the foam.
But the sea and the shore will remain
Forever.
I am forever walking upon these shores,
Betwixt the sand and the foam,
The high tide will erase my foot-prints,
And the wind will blow away the foam.
But the sea and the shore will remain
Forever.