Controversy over an Amy Sherald painting of the Statue of Liberty reveals divides over US national symbols, joining debates that have centred on the statue since it was first unveiled.
So fixed is our focus on the radiant points of her spiky crown and the upward thrust of her flickering lamp, it is easy to miss altogether the shackles of human enslavement that Lady Liberty – who is at the centre of a fresh skirmish in the US’s accelerating culture wars – is busy trampling underfoot. Her meaning contains multitudes. It pulls her in many directions.
Messily inspired, as all great art is, by a mixture of sources – from the Roman goddess Libertas, to the Greek sun god Helios, to the multifaceted Egyptian goddess Isis (who fascinated the sculpture’s creator, the French artist Frédéric-Auguste Bartholdi) – the Statue of Liberty seems hardwired for debate. She boldly embodies the one straightforward truth about cultural symbols: their truths are never straightforward.
