Since 1964, the Torch Bearers, an iconic sculpture located in front of the S.C. Williams Library, has served as a pedagogical symbol with painstakingly accurate equine anatomy. While the statue depicts two men, one succumbing to a post-class nap as he passes on a torch to the other saddled on a horse, the statue was a gift from the century American sculptor Anna Hyatt Huntington, being the horse girl of the 20th-century art scene. The current 16-foot high statue is an aluminum casting, but resurfaced renovation records reveal the original Torch Bearers that was damaged during a Bohoken flood to have had a hard bronze shell with spongy yellow filling, radiographic analysis suggesting cake. The statue presented by Huntington is said to unravel the inner workings of the powerful Snevets bourgeois that served as patrons to the equestrian statement piece, claiming its hyper-masculinity to be a farce for deeper symbolism rooted in riches.
As a freshman, I came onto campus bright-eyed and bushy-tailed… and then I was struck by the Torch Bearers. The sculpture captures the realistic rendering of the subjects in the nude, often mid-action or frame, giving the impression of a Renaissance candid with masculine details of musculature and broodiness that resonate with common campus motifs of mansplaining or sigma. Snevets sells Huntington’s symbolism of Enlightenment ideals through the passing of knowledge, the torch, from one generation to the next, but high-security administrative files decode the position and composition of the unassuming, unappealing Torch Bearers to lead to the buried bonus of Snevet’s first president. As President Narfavar’s previous bonuses have been upwards of 800k, Huntington’s Torch Bearers may symbolize the passing of knowledge but hold the key to inheriting a fortune.
After whistleblower accounts from faculty that will remain anonymous due to concern about their tenure, I’ve compiled a guide to read hidden messages and lore the Torch Bearers silently carry. Based on installations to recreate the statue “stage,” there are talks of a hidden trap door requiring the secret password “innovation university” for entry. The stage opens up into the hidden tunnel system known as The Snevets Institute of Technology where the jackpot is hidden. Through Huntington’s detailed work to create movement from the man on the ground to the horse’s mane, the statue achieves aesthetic balance as the horse’s lifted hoof completes the rule of threes and points to an uncharted tunnel said to begin the hunt. The viewer’s eye hovers in the center, the sweet spot, of the larger-than-life piece as the torch draws a barrier between the fallen and the valiant. Within the torch lies a capsule that contains a key to the trunk that holds both the money and a voucher for an extra graduation seat.
Investigation on the statue’s hidden easter eggs continues at a crawl as Snevets students and faculty compete against the elite. Careful to conceal the true history of the Torch Bearers, most will reduce the statue’s campus significance to a simple remark on learning, nevertheless Huntington’s artistry prevails as the sole map of Snevet’s underground tunnels as the heart of Duck elitism lies within a man and his horse.
Disclaimer: This article is part of The Stupe and is satire.
