Letters of Light

Micha Ullman explaining his sculpture.

It is very pleasant to look at a piece of art and appreciate it with no prior knowledge; letting it speak to you through your experience, memories, knowledge and aesthetic sensibilities. It is a different experience to see a piece of art in the presence of the artist, who can explain his thought processes in conceiving the art, the steps he took to express them, and the references that art incorporates.

That is what I experienced recently when I was part of a group that met Micha Ullman, recipient of Israel Prize for sculpture in 2009 and creator of Letters of Light, a sculpture outside the new Israel National Library.

The sculpture sits on a triangle of land where Kaplan Street intersects with Derech Ruppin. On three sides, it is framed by iconic buildings: the new National Library of Israel, the Knesset, and the Israel Museum. From the air, it resembles a gigantic sundial, and that is also the intent of the artist. Around a circle there are 18 standing blocks of limestone from the Ramon Crater. The empty spaces within each block form the letters of the alphabet, carved so that each letter is about the size of a person, 190 cm high. The sunlight passing through the blocks draws the letters on the floor of the circle. As the earth turns and the sun traverses the sky from east to west, the shadows formed by the blocks delineate one group of letters, while obscuring others.

Ullman explained why he chose blocks of stone from this area and not another area in Israel. Since the first writing was in Pro-Canaanite, he felt desert rocks expressed this best. The alphabet was later adopted by Phoenicians and transported around the Mediterranean, changing in the process. We were shown pictures of how the blocks were selected in the quarry, already predetermined for future use as a specific letter and transported to his studio where they were carved.

The letters do not progress around the circle in alphabetical order, and Ullman asked us to think of the key to the progression. This reminded me of the thought or logic puzzles that used to frustrate me in Scientific American magazine. The spoiler is that the letters are arranged according to where the sound is produced in the mouth. One group contains those produced by the tongue (lamed, for example); another those using the teeth, such as tzadik and a third the lips sounds, such as bet. Even with this explanation it was sometimes difficult to decipher which letter was represented by a particular stone. The eye is not used to making sense of negative space, and the top of the letters often were open to the sky, so you had to envision the letter without it fully formed in front of you.

In the center of the circle are three letters formed by glass panels, which let sunlight into a subterranean chamber. They are the first letter of the alphabet in Hebrew, English and Arabic. We went around and down into the chamber from Derch Ruppin. Along the hall leading to the chamber are carved the guttural letters such as het and ayan, making the passageway a symbol of the throat. Inside the chamber the three letters are projected by the sunlight onto to floor or the walls, depending on the season and time of day. They are arranged in a calculated fashion, so that on the summer solstice, all three are on the floor at midday, and in the winter all three are on the wall at midday. On the fall and spring solstices, some are on the wall and some on the floor. Ullman calculated the placement of the three with the help of scientific friends. It's interesting that almost all early or "primitive" civilizations did this without the help of scientists.

Ullman ended his talk with a comment that a sculpture made of letters is very fitting for a library where the nation's books are held, but also fitting for a location next to the Knesset where the spoken word and the decisions made upon it can have such importance to the nation.

The Letters of Light can be seen at any time from above, and the underground chamber is open when the library is open.