ABSTRACT
I cannot think of a more tranquilizing activity than examining the art and ideas of the past in the peaceful, verdant silence of a graveyard. Rubbing itself is an ancient Chinese craft and, through transmission from Great Britain, reached America. It requires no great skill to copy a piece of memorial sculpture—just some paper, tape, and crayons. (So simple a grown-up can do it.) But when you are done, you have tactilely learned something of the lives of three individuals from the past—the deceased whose story is recounted in the memorial, the mourner who commissioned it, and an artisan who designed and created the stone. The attitudes they held, we sense, teach us something about ourselves. And best of all, since no rubbing is the same, we have an original art work to take home.
