In one of the pathways in the Western Tower (giving some space to the key mountains: the "7 summits" and the Eight-Thousanders), have been also integrated the sacred mountains.
In a plate of smaller size, Annie Taylor, the "little bride of God", indoctrinate the young, delicate Pontso
ANNIE TAYLOR (22X51)
An English missionary in her forties and sickly, from an high class college to the mission in China and Mongolia. She decided, enchanted by Tibetan people, to go and conquer for God the Tibet. In her own many efforts to reach the Forbidden City, she met Pontso, an eighteen years old Tibetan" . with his sweet face, a pre-raphaelite angel" whom became christian, and her adoptive son. The history of Annie and Pontso is similar to David Neal's one, but it contrasts on a religious plane. Intrepid and resolute, she made ruinous trips, her own tragic adventures won't bring her to Lhasa: in January 1893 she is stopped and arrested. The last news about per and the fragile Pontso ascend to the end of 1893: when a long row of British soldiers crossed the boundary, Annie lived in Yatungo, where she had opened a small commercial business.
To the imperturbability of the Lama is opposed a free young Fosco Maraini that photographed art and persons loving them with the same intensity. He is leaning to a shaky stupa: to one side, the Dance of the Skeleton, to the other, Pema-Chóki Namgyal, princess that Death has taken away soon.
Symbols and suggestions...
FOSCO MARAINI (35X51)
Anthropologist, climber, good writer and extraordinary Italian photographer (1912 - 2004). His first trip in Tibet with Giuseppe Tucci was the base of the forming of his spirit and his own high cultural development." ... not a photographer reporting, but a camera, a Leica, that shot what the heart felt, the things the soul bowed, with amazement, to perceive and to breath. A mystic wind entering in any of your space to mix with you to become image and voice, the infinite dare of the mountain, the carcass of a exhausted Himalayan horse, the smiling look of a shepherd, the vigil without time of a hermit, the sumptuous dress of a Rimpoche, the voices of hundreds of little monks in a solitary monastery , the invincible glance of the most beloved peak: Pema Chöki, the Princess..." (S. Dallari).
LAMA APHUR JONGDEN-ALBERT DAVID Tibetan monk 1899-1955
Lama Anagarika Govinda is painted in his suit of Great Convert; in him, intelligence excels and the sweet Li Gotami seems to bow at him, like the Spirit of Beauty to Buddha Sâkyamuni.
LAMA ANAGARIKA GOVINDA (22X51)
Born in 1898 he was "a man of Indian origin, with European ancestors (Germany) and Buddhist, that belongs to a Tibetan order and believe in men brotherhood": so he liked to describe himself. He was from the Andes region and described as one of the greater living authorities in the meditation field; Lama Govinda, in his intense life of scholar and religious, was a philosopher and thinker, archaeologist, but also a fine poet and artist. In love with Kailãs, he was its bard by analysing, the peculiar symbols. LI GOTAMI, excellent copyist and refined painter, accompanied him in his archaeological and spiritual studies.
Sven Anders Hedin is painted while drawing some girls: his travel colour set beside him, his proud glance of burning explorer, ill, they said, di of that ecstasies of a total, heroic adventure.
SVEN ANDERS HEDIN (29X51)
Swedish explorer ( 1865-1952). In love with the immense steppes and mighty tablelands, for 3 times tries to reach the Forbidden City. The contact with Tibet has been part of his young adventures full of enthusiasm and rages. He was labelled the "last explorer" to live a travel as adventurous geography, as haunted by the discovery anxiety. In his books, beside the tale there are photos, maps, an above all wonderful drawings, made with pencil, in and watercolour.
