The Sculptures

Forest Geometries comprises the five Platonic polyhedra—geometric forms with identical faces meeting at identical angles—constructed from deadfall spruce and balsam fir saplings gathered on the land at the Langlais Art Preserve. The sculptures engage with both the dynamic ecology of the forest and with Bernard Langlais’s artistic legacy as a maker of large-scale outdoor sculpture from found wood. They also draw on ancient Greek associations between geometry and the classical elements of earth, fire, water, air, and ether (or cosmos). The sculptures are located along the 2.3-mile Langlais Woodland Trail, bringing forth relationships between the site’s ecology and the classical element represented by each polyhedron.