United States Twenty Dollar Coin 1907

This United States twenty dollar coin was designed by Augustus Saint-Gaudens. I’m thinking about the hand that engraved it, guiding the tool, pressing, releasing, over and over until the design, the image, starts to emerge. The tool moves away, then comes back, again and again. The engraver carves away at the metal, patiently coaxing Liberty out of the blank metal ground. I imagine Saint-Gaudens completely absorbed in the labour, focused on that singular goal, chasing that perfect form. What was he thinking? Was he hopeful? Anxious? Every choice is so deliberate, so precise. He would have been striving for something beyond the functional or representational, something that embodies an idea. Even though it's small, this coin is monumental. It reminds us of the countless artists who have grappled with similar ideas before us.