Taj Mahal - ice sculpture

I have never been to India so my knowledge of the culture is limited to what I have read and what call-centre operatives have told me when they ring to help me fix my computer. I know their scams so I like to give them the runaround and make sure I waste as much of their time as I can and to entertain myself. Usually, I get them to stay on the phone for around half an hour as I act like a fumbling idiot. Where is the ANY key? Yes my windows are open but it is very cold. I get them talking about whatever else comes to my mind and by the end they give up. In preparation for this post, I decided to use the most recent call as a learning experience. My computer never got fixed but I received a good education.

We had a nice chat about the Taj Mahal. Did you know that it was built as a mausoleum For someone's wife? That it is symmetrical quite perfect or that there were plans to build a second one just across the river, as a mirror image but in Black marble? Well, neither did I. I never knew much about the Taj Mahal even when I made this snow and Ice sculpture at the 2015 Zwolle Ice sculpture exhibition in the Netherlands.

His and herstory

After our call, I figured I should really do some more homework so here is a little history lesson. Yes, indeed the Taj Mahal was built as a beautiful tomb for the favourite wife of the Mugal Emperor Shah Jahān in the 17th century. Mumtāz Maḥal died while giving birth to their 14th child. Out of his love for her, he commissioned the ' Crown of the Palace' in 1632. It took about 22 years to build by 20,000 artisans. It was built with Ivory white Marble and regarded by many as the best example of Mughal architecture it also won the 7 wonders of the world competition in 2000.

It is also said that Shah Jahān had planned to build himself a version in black marble that would sit just across the Yumuna river and that would be his last resting place.
His son overthrew him and instead put his body in the Taj Mahal breaking the near-perfect symmetry. (This part of the story seems more of a myth written by Europeans that liked to embellish things about other peoples cultures.)

Mixing different solid waters

Well, I didn't have 22 years or 20,000 people to help me recreate the story. It was just little old me and 7 days. Apparently, God made everything in that time so I was sure I could come up with something.

The Taj itself was made using Snow which I sprayed with water to give it a shiny marble effect. I may have mentioned before that I hate straight lines and architecture but this was a fun little challenge trying to keep everything symmetrical. I just did it by eye so as not to go mad and left out some of the tiny details because I knew they would not last too long, due to melting.

The scene was to be viewed from the front, through the arches. Black cloth would hide everything around but because I had none of this in place I had to use my imagination as I built.

I normally don't do much with my photos when I make a blog post except colour correct and mess with contrast to bring up details but for the first image in this post, I added the black background to give you an idea of how it would look in my mind eye. I had to leave before the final background and lighting was in place.

On one side I made an ice sculpture with a portrait of Mumtāz Maḥal based on a famous painting of her.

On the other was one of Shah Jahān to try and keep with the symmetry he so loved.

The archways were then cut from a large wall of white ice which was stacked at the front. This was simple enough and based on the ones they have around the rest of the complex in Agra, India. It created a nice frame for the sculptures.

I would have liked to see it all finished. Taking photos was quite difficult because there wasn't much space at the front to compose a shot and around still looked a mess when I was leaving. But I am sure that just like the real thing photos would never really do it justice. Some things you really have to experience in the flesh.

alt

Ps

Thanks for reading. I use PeakD to document my work as an ephemeral Sculptor of sand, snow and ice, amongst other things. This will hopefully give it a new life on the Hive Blockchain. Below you will find some of my recent posts.