A vigorous mollusk

But the obvious dynamism of these extravagant figures lies in the fact that they come alive in the dialectics of what is hidden and what is manifest. A creature that hides and ‘withdraws into its shell’, is preparing a ‘way out’. This is true of the entire scale of metaphors, from the resurrection of a man in his grave, to the sudden outburst of one who has long been silent. If we remain at the heart of the image under consideration, we have the impression that, by staying in the motionlessness of its shell, the creature is preparing temporal explosions, not to say whirlwinds, of being. The most dynamic escapes take place in cases of repressed being, and not in the flabby laziness of the lazy creature whose only desire is to go and be lazy elsewhere. If we experience the imaginary paradox of a vigorous mollusk–the engravings in question give us excellent depictions of them–we attain to the most decisive type of aggressiveness, which is postponed aggressiveness, aggressiveness that bides its time. Wolves in shells are crueler than stray ones.

Chapter 5.IV:  shells The Poetics of Space, Gaston Bachelard, transl. Maria Jolas

Photo taken in Cranston Street Armory, Providence RI

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