I scanned the message for a picture … and then I saw it.<\/p>\n
\u201cOh,\u201d I thought.<\/p>\n
What a handsome statue. What a handsome man.<\/p>\n
To be crystal clear: the new 7.5-foot Melville statue \u2014 which will be unveiled in front of New Bedford\u2019s Seamen\u2019s Bethel during a series of celebratory events this weekend<\/a> \u2014 is hot.<\/p>\n Get Starting Point<\/p>\n A guide through the most important stories of the morning, delivered Monday through Friday.<\/p>\n The bronze work \u2014 depicting an ageless Melville with a wind-swept beard, standing in the hard ribs of a whale \u2014 is rugged. Maybe he possesses the spirit of the man Melville could have been if he\u2019d known \u201cMoby-Dick\u201d would become one of the most popular works in the American literary canon. (Melville died before the whale tale became a hit.)<\/p>\n Oneonta, N.Y., sculptor Stefanie Rocknak<\/a>, who was chosen<\/a> by the City of New Bedford<\/a> from a pack of artists for this job, said I am not the first to notice that her depiction of Melville is very attractive.<\/p>\n The final version of her work has been kept secret for a more dramatic unveiling, but when Rocknak briefly revealed the head for a moment during the installation, a woman passed by \u2014 \u201cand she said, \u2018You made him really handsome,\u2019\u201d Rocknak said. \u201cAnd I\u2019m like, \u2018Good, yeah, I\u2019m glad.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n Rocknak said she didn\u2019t round up when it came to Melville\u2019s looks. Unlike some of her other subjects<\/a>, he was handsome \u2014 which is why she made him seem like the kind of guy who, in my opinion, could stare into your soul and then kiss you until you forget your own name.<\/p>\n You can tell by the way his hand clutches the whale bone beneath him.<\/p>\n \u201cHe was very meticulous about his appearance, as well,\u201d Rocknak said. \u201cVery well groomed. I don\u2019t know if he would have approved of his beard going all over the place the way that I have [it], and his clothes blowing in the wind.\u201d<\/p>\n He would approve, I assured Rocknak. It\u2019s not a disheveled look at all; it\u2019s the look of a man who has seen the world \u2014 who wants more. Who desires experience and passion.<\/p>\n \u201cHe\u2019s on a granite base too,\u201d Rocknak said. \u201cIt\u2019s large, 18 inches thick. It\u2019s solid. Came from Maine, the granite.\u201d<\/p>\n To be clear: I never thought much about Melville\u2019s appearance, not even when I attended one of the Whaling Museum\u2019s annual 24-hour readings<\/a> of \u201cMoby-Dick,\u201d an activity I highly recommend.<\/p>\n But a few years ago, a friend reminded me of the way Melville writes about love \u2014 men loving men, men feeling emotional about the world. <\/p>\n Then I fell down a rabbit hole, looking to see if Melville wrote love letters (my main interest in life), and of course he did, most notably to Nathaniel Hawthorne about how much he loved his work. (Please read the Literary Hub report<\/a> on Melville\u2019s adoration of Hawthorne. Melville would have probably had some intense questions for the Love Letters advice column<\/a>.)<\/p>\n As a relationship writer, I am also interested in the details of Melville\u2019s marriage \u2014 and a possible affair he had with a woman in the Berkshires (this is the point of the book \u201cMelville in Love: The Secret Life of Herman Melville and the Muse of Moby-Dick<\/a>\u201d by Michael Shelden). <\/p>\n The point is, I have known that Melville was an emotional man searching for love out of reach. But the old, yellowing pictures of him in museums and libraries haven\u2019t shown me this.<\/p>\n This statue does.<\/p>\n Amanda McMullen, president of the Whaling Museum, said she doesn\u2019t mind if a takeaway of this weekend\u2019s celebration is that the statue is attractive. She will admit there\u2019s something about it. <\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t know that I can comment on whether or not he\u2019s hot or not, but I will say there is a vibrancy to this statue that you don\u2019t typically see,\u201d she said. \u201cIt\u2019s very dynamic, and he does have windblown hair.\u201d<\/p>\n She continued, \u201cI mean, he understood the power of New Bedford through immigration in the 1800s in a way that I\u2019d like to hope we still could hold on to today. He just had a deep appreciation for a range of people and ethnicities and cultures, and that I think was what some of his writing really articulated \u2014 how much he valued what he learned about other countries and cultures and communities.\u201d<\/p>\n Rocknak warned me that the sculpture will look a bit green when it\u2019s revealed. I don\u2019t care. <\/p>\n I do like the raw clay. It\u2019s very … bare. <\/p>\n I told Rocknak that for the first time, because of this sculpture, I\u2019ve longed for a Melville biopic. I can\u2019t quite count Ron Howard\u2019s \u201cIn the Heart of the Sea<\/a>,\u201d in which Melville is played by Ben Whishaw, because the movie\u2019s not really about him. <\/p>\n The artist had no casting ideas.<\/p>\n But McMullen did. <\/p>\n \u201cWe had actor Steven Weber here last year reading in our [\u201dMoby-Dick\u201d] marathon \u2014 [he] was extraordinary,\u201d she said. \u201cHe was so exceptionally talented reading the final chapter, and got a roaring approval from deep, diehard Melville fans with the way he brought those words to life, so I throw him right up there.\u201d<\/p>\n But Weber, 65, is not the right age. I\u2019d prefer a film that focuses on the awkward era after \u201cMoby-Dick\u201d was released and most people didn\u2019t like it. Maybe a Melville in his mid-30s.<\/p>\n There\u2019d be anguish, pain, highs and lows, etc.<\/p>\n You may ask: Is this report on a statue showing Melville\u2019s handsomeness worth the space? Perhaps you\u2019re wondering: \u201cIs the analysis of an attractive statue a necessary conversation?\u201d<\/p>\n I must say, rather defensively, that the One Special Thing column in the Globe is designed to celebrate a bright moment in the world \u2014 art, food, nostalgic entertainment, music that makes a moment.<\/p>\n The world is relentless right now, and we must celebrate happiness and pleasure where we can find it.<\/p>\n This statue of Herman Melville is hot. Let yourself have this.<\/p>\n Actor Sam Waterston<\/a> will read Chapter 9 of \u201cMoby-Dick\u201d to celebrate the dedication<\/a> of the Melville statue on Friday, Aug. 14, at 11 a.m. at Seaman\u2019s Bethel.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The announcement sat in my inbox like many local press releases do, the subject line fairly standard. \u201cStatue…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":592179,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[307,304,305,306,308,93,61,60],"class_list":["post-592178","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-arts-and-design","tag-arts","tag-arts-and-design","tag-artsanddesign","tag-artsdesign","tag-design","tag-entertainment","tag-ie","tag-ireland"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/592178","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=592178"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/592178\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/592179"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=592178"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=592178"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=592178"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Melville](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/HQXWWPQ6YBC3LLPVDMV2WWPFQQ.jpg\")
Melville in the ribs of a whale. The sculpture by Stefanie Rocknak will be unveiled this weekend.Stefanie Rocknak<\/p>\n![\"Herman](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/HW2JCK6MFJGLXENMOTMNC2GWZQ.jpg\")
Herman Melville, taken in Pittsfield in 1850. Berkshire Athenaeum<\/p>\n![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/NOOAC2T25JHGPDXVVNY3AI3ALM.jpg\")
A statue of Herman Melville by Stefanie Rocknak. Really, this is his best side.Stefanie Rocknak<\/p>\n