The Inspiration of Art

"Conceptual artist Loris Gréaud (b. 1979, France), who joined The Pace Gallery this month, will present The Gepetto Pavilion, a colossal sculpture of a 55-foot-long beached whale placed at the canal entrance to the Arsenale with an “isolation room” in the whale’s belly for visitors to enter.
Made and carved according to the description of Moby Dick, Gréaud’s life-sized whale explores the myth of the belly of the whale in contemporary culture, from biblical stories to Pinocchio. Continuing his practice of collaborating with experts in diverse fields, Gréaud compiled, archived, and analyzed stories about the obsession of the whale and formed a team of oceanographers and sculptors to produce an artwork that corresponds to their research. The inside of the belly houses a 40 square-foot space where the spectator can actually live what it would feel like to be swallowed and expectorated, allowing them an extreme and fictitious experience that has only been made tangible in tales and legends. " at http://www.artdaily.org/index.asp?int_sec=2&int_new=46841

This interests me because Melville would be proud how his old-time encyclopedic book was used for the description of the sculpture. Clearly, this modern artist could use a more scientific description, but he chose Melville's famous stuff. One case where Melville's writing, the fluffy poetry-like prose, is used well.