Number of Sketches

I won't provide as many sketches on this blog for Alexander as I have done for Louis XIV for a variety of reasons...Size of the sketchbook being the main one, as my drawings of Alexander are much smaller in size since my book is smaller, and therefore, they are more compressed and frankly, pretty illegible. I did post one at Alexander-Macedon in which I tried to capture his likeness. I may try to draw this on a larger sketchpad so that I can post it here. Verbal portraits are sometimes better than poor artwork, but I will try to see if I can do this or not.

At any rate, I was suffering a lot awhile back, shortly after I had moved to this apartment. I had a terrible pain in my lower leg, and frankly, after one gets through these sessions with the past one cannot help but wonder if the pain in one's leg is mine or that of Alexander. I did not know what I had done besides lift lots of boxes to injure my shinbone region...It just gave me severe pain.

I did exercise it in the hot tub and lap pool at the fitness center. That helped a lot.

But for some reason while keeping my leg raised, I suddenly flashed back to a n Alexander. He had been injured by a rock that hit him in the back of the neck and had caused him to lose vision and other faculties at the time. In addition to that he had suffered an injury to his shinbone where the bone was splintered, and so he was in a medical tent when I saw him...he was on a gurney type platform, and he was enthusiastically directing everyone to do this, to do that, and to be so energetic, so lively, so enthusiastic that he truly inspired me. His hair was long, leonine, curled, freshly shampooed, and his body had been well oiled as I could see the oil shimmer off his skin...He had one leg up, just as I had been doing with my leg, and the other straight out, and despite his injuries, he was busy telling everyone what to do and how to do it...His enthusiasm and high spirits so impressed me that it helped me to come out of my doldroms, and I thank that scene for making me realize that I need not give in to the pain. Believe it or not, the pain did begin to subside, and I began then to have suspicions as to whether I had been reliving an old pain from his time or that my own leg was really giving me problems.

Naturally I had to look up that scene in a biography. I picked Plutarch's Lives...I got over my pain very quickly after that. I have never forgotten that Alexander was in far worse condition but had the positive spirit to move me so as he did then. I drew a sketch which I did post at AM and it was one of my better portraits of him. I really liked him then, and understood the infectious spirit that he had to instill in his soldiers...He is truly great in that image and recollection...