Monuments

People travel to see monuments and statues all over the world. For example, 6 million people annually come to the United States to take a look at the Lincoln Memorial. Why do so many tourists come to see it even though "it sits literally on mud dredged from the Potomac River bottom in the late nineteenth century" (Savage)? The Lincoln Memorial "did not even exist in Lincoln's lifetime" (Savage), so why is it such a remarkable piece of art? Even though the memorial contains no actual artifacts of Lincoln, the monument manufactures its own aura and fulfills "the deep need for attachment that can be met only in a real place" (Savage).

Monuments and memorials become so much more meaningful when an individual is standing in front of it rather than looking at a Google image. A great example would be the monument of Christopher Columbus in Riverside Park, Easton, Pennsylvania. If a person were to just look at a photo of the statue, it would look like any other statue. However, if they were to visit the park and experience the statue and the environment around it, they would get the full experience. On a foggy day, a person would be able to feel the solemn atmosphere around the statue which represents how Columbus felt while observing the immense amount of land in North America. Also, the person would notice how the creator put the majestic statue in the middle of a park and not in a graveyard to allow the statue to have daily interactions with the people every day. There are countless numbers of monuments like this from The Maine Lobsterman to Crazy Horse to the Holocaust Museum that illustrate the fact that monuments need to be seen in person. All of these memorials carefully consider the location, size, materials, and purpose in order to pay respect to deep sacrifice or honor remarkable achievements.