“I know what it is like to have a dream and be the only one who can see it.” I once read that at the entrance to an exhibit at an art museum many years ago. The power of those words spoke to me on many levels, both personal and professional. I decide to commit those words to memory thinking that might prove inspirational to me at some point in the future. The quote was not to be taken lightly nor forgotten. There was power in those words. The kind that comes from self-belief. To see something else no one else can is a magical feeling. It is also a maddening one if that vision cannot be brought beyond the point of conception. Realizing a vision that comes from deep inside yourself takes hard work, resourcefulness, and luck. It also takes an incredible amount of self-belief. One must overcome fear in pursuit of their vision. Fear of rejection and fear of failure can keep a vision from being realized. Fortunately, there are some who refuse to admit defeat. They are the difference between those who make history and those who make it up.

Monumental conception – Egypt Carrying the Light to Asia by Frederic Auguste Bartholdi
Hope & Progress – A Transcendent Vision
Frederic Bartholdi had a vision that he thought was worth sharing with the world. His vision began as an inspiration which formed when he saw the colossal sculptures of Ramesses II and his family carved from rock at Abu Simbel, a temple complex along the Upper Nile in Egypt. In that moment, Bartholdi saw the art of possibility. He would later write, “These granite beings, in their imperturbable majesty, seem to be still listening to the most remote antiquity. Their kindly and impassible glance seems to ignore the present and to be fixed upon an unlimited future.” For Bartholdi, the sculptures at Abu Gimbel were not the only ones looking to the future. The visit to Abu Simbel, along with his studies of other ancient monumental works such as the Colossus of Rhodes, gave him the inspiration to pursue his own dream of a colossal sculpture. It would be of a robed Egyptian fellaha, a female field worker who would be carrying a torch in her hand.
The sculpture was to be placed at the northern entrance of the Suez Canal. Anyone entering or exiting the canal would be awestruck by the towering monument that Bartholdi designed to be 26-meters-tall standing atop a 15-meter-high plinth. The sculpture would be symbolic of Egypt’s movement towards modernization. The fellaha would act as a beacon of hope and progress. The working title for the project was aptly named, “Egypt Carrying The Light to Asia” Bartholdi was a man in the grip of what he believed to be a transcendent vision. One that he wanted to share with the world. He believed that others would find his vision just as compelling. They just needed convincing to transform that vision from imagination to reality. Making that happen would prove extremely difficult.

Visionary – Auguste Bartholdi (Credit: Jose Frappe)
Business Sense – The Costly Canal
The building of the Suez Canal took ten years, an estimated 120,000 lives of the laborers who toiled beneath the burning sun and cost a fortune. The canal was as much a triumph of the will, as it was of engineering. There were numerous delays that only added to the cost. Over half of the financing came from French investors, most of the rest came from Khedive Ismail, the governor of Egypt. By the time the canal was completed, there was no money left to spare on any extras. While the canal was a miracle of determination and dynamism, it was also a business enterprise. The Suez Canal Company which led the construction, as well as the Egyptian government, were keen for it to begin paying economic dividends. The practical business side of the canal could not be ignored. All talk of progress aside, the canal was built to boost trade and commerce. Aesthetic concerns were not on anyone’s priority list. While the canal was a great engineering achievement, the greatest celebration would be reserved for when it became profitable.
Bartholdi was not one to be deterred by issues of cost. He was an artist not a businessman who was devoted to his craft at literally all costs. He believed his idea was worthy of acceptance. All he needed was the chance to convince the right people, or in this case person. Bartholdi managed to arrange a meeting with Khedive Ismail in 1869, the year of the canal’s completion. The Frenchman had grounds for optimism. Ismail was pro-European. He had already spent a fortune on lavish projects that were transforming the urban landscape of Cairo and Alexandria. The problem was Ismail’s spendthrift ways were bankrupting his government. Perhaps if Bartholdi had brought the idea to Ismail’s attention earlier than he might have been given a more receptive audience. The astronomical cost of the project estimated at $600,000 led to Ismail’s rejection. The Suez Canal Company which had played the major role in financing the canal also rejected the sculpture. The cost was simply too high, while the benefits were not clear.

Lighting the way – Statue of Liberty
A Brilliant Revision – Carrying Light to The World
Bartholdi could have given up on his monumental idea after its initial failure. Instead, he ended up reworking the project several years later when another opportunity arose. He turned his idea for a colossal neo-classical sculpture from an Egyptian fellah to another compelling female figure. Bartholdi re-envisioned the sculpture as a Roman goddess holding aloft a torch. This was “Liberty Enlightening the World.” The idea that inspired this revision came from Edouard de Laboulaye, a French political philosopher who proposed a monumental work as a gift from France to the United States in honor of the latter’s commitment to freedom and democracy. Laboulaye hoped this would inspire the French to abandon their ossified monarchy. Bartholdi had been commissioned to create a bust of Laboulaye and learned of his idea.
Bartholdi reasoned that the sculpture should be given in commemoration of the alliance between France and the United States during the American Revolution. This led to Bartholdi’s reworked sculpture which became known as the Statue of Liberty. It is now one of the nation’s most recognizable icons, but few know that the original idea was for the sculpture to stand beside the Suez Canal’s northern entrance. Bartholdi’s vision for a monumental work to grace the Egyptian shoreline is invisible except in the pages of history, but the realization of his dream still stands today in New York Harbor where millions come to see it. The rejection of “Egypt Carrying The Light to Asia” improbably led to its ultimate success as Lady Liberty standing on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean.