Maker: Christopher Young
Original format: 16mm sound film 1.37:1

A visual timeline is prefaced by this declaration: "Let us consider objects, for they tell the story of life." The transient objects of human history"sculptures, weapons, religious icons"are placed within the eternal in nature, creating juxtapositions that progress toward chaos and flames, then back to the eternal. -R. Bruce Elder

Before making Object Lesson, Christopher Young (1909-1975) had made a documentary, The Vanished Land (1935), for the Department of Agriculture, and many films on skiing. During W.W.II, he served as a photographer for the Signal Corp. Between 1953 and 1956, he returned to the themes of Object Lesson, with Subject Lesson (1956). -Bruce Posner