The Philip Trust Collection (Private), England

GORDIAN KNOT

HEIGHT 3FT (1M)
POLISHED BRONZE
1982

"The Unknown"

Having discovered with ETERNITY and DEPENDENT BEINGS the magic of what could be done with a circle and a tile that had a hole in the middle, I had to experiment with curved surfaces. What would happen if I used the club design of a three leaf clover ?

When the sculpture started to take form I found that from this combination appeared a beautiful endless triple rope. I named the sculpture GORDIAN KNOT, after the puzzle posed to Alexander the Great, which he solved by cutting the knot with his sword ! Following the strand by eye is certainly confusing, so I can understand his resorting to cutting it.

This sculpture is considered in Fibre Bundles and Torus Knots by Ronnie Brown. There is also a rotating computer generated version.


©Mathematics and Knots/Edition Limitee 1996
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