Did you know that the famous rock star Rod Stewart spend a lot of his time building miniature railroad landscapes? He does, and he is just one of millions of people on this planet who looks at the world through miniatures. There are clubs for miniature Fairy Gardens, and people like, Matthew Albanese who create fantastic sceneries, all in model scale to make stunning life like photos as if it was all real.
From antiquity Cyprus goddess clay figures to First Nation Kachina dolls, human beings simply have a fascination for the small scale. There seem to be an archetypal need for us to scale things down in order to understand them. I remember my own fondness of the medieval miniature model city in front of the Copenhagen City Museum as a child.
The display which was outside the building ( see picture ) was on my way to and from school. I would stop and gaze at it almost every day and imagine myself living in or walking the streets of the old city just by looking at the model display. The Copenhagen display however was tiny, compared to the later big model cities of Rome or Shanghai.
Is it because the tiny worlds makes us feel like Gods? Is it a matter of feeling in control or just a matter of understanding a larger context by minimizing it? I believe it is a little bit of both. When the early people of my country Denmark created a model of a horse pulling the sun, they understood the concept of the “Sun-wagon”. The sun clearly moved because it was pulled by a horse named Hrimfaxi.
I, like many other people have my own miniature displays at my home in form of Ikons, crucifixes and Buddha statuettes. Little reminders of much larger concepts. They are the small scale items which leads my thoughts to something much bigger such as the Numinous which so huge and is beyond my understanding. By looking at them though, I get a glimpse, an idea of the real thing.
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