Royal Purple

Issue date: 12/3/08 Section: Arts & Entertainment

Media Credit: Kaitlynn Parrott The sculpture outside of the Williams Center is one of new sculptures on campus this semester.

Bretl [Click to enlarge]

Last week I mentioned how we can draw inspiration from nature and that creative force is expressed best in the beauty we sense all around us. Now some would say this is a rather Eastern philosophy, but it has occurred to me that a similar conclusion can be made using more Western techniques of analysis.

All things universally recognized as beautiful contain a sort of humility. For example, sunsets, oceans, oak leaves, and even seasons remain a sort of background ambience to our daily lives, and we consider this a necessity for beauty; nothing considered beautiful is obvious or domineering.

An art student on his way to class, if asked how beautiful the Black Walnut (Juglans nigra) trees on campus are, will most likely respond that he hasn't noticed them, yet if he stops to ponder such magnificence as is expressed by these silent giants, he would find a feeling of artistic wonder is inescapable and that this wonder professes a more poignant lesson than anything or anyone indoors ever could.

Upon further investigation, one would learn that the fruit of these trees has been used for millennia to make ink for drawing. We should be abashed to find Nasco further exploiting college art students while nature waits quietly, tax free, unexplored and unused. Glory to Aristaios if the academic art world were quick to embrace creative behavior as nature allows.

So, in nature we find not only beauty waiting to be noticed but also utility waiting to be discovered. And although many have tried, nature will not allow the separation of beauty from utility.

A reasonable requirement of every public art piece is that it be enriching to the lives of those who view it. Who wants to be confronted by the expression of some repressed neurosis every time they walk into work or school?

This brings us to the topic of this article, specifically the new sculpture outside the Williams Center, and the question that must be asked: Is this sculpture art? That is not to ask if it's an attempt at art, for surely it is an attempt, but rather to ask: Are we as a generation going to allow this to pass as acceptable behavior for an artist?

In considering this question together we'll have to concert on three ideas: (1) in creating art we imitate the creative action of nature, (2) the creative action of nature is beautiful, and (3) two requirements for beauty are humility and utility.

So for this sculpture to be art it must be beautiful and to be beautiful it must be humble and useful.

A method for testing if something is intrinsically useful is to consider what would be in the case of its absence.

If this sculpture did not exist, it is most likely that grass would be growing in its place.

Grass is certainly useful. So the question is now: Is this sculpture more useful than grass?

The sculpture seems to offer no more useful insights, feelings, or revelations other than the fact that humans are capable of forging, painting and displaying painted metal.

Grass produces oxygen. This sculpture does not produce oxygen as far as I am aware, so in utility points, grass scores one and the sculpture zero.

The second characteristic we must analyze is humility.

Grass is humble. Rarely does anyone notice it.

The sculpture is flashy, brightly painted, and the first thing one notices while heading down Warhawk Drive. This brings the final score to two for grass while the sculpture remains at zero.

So in conclusion, we as a generation will not benefit from considering this sculpture art, and should, for the sake of progress, demand more from our artists.

As Emerson writes, "Art should exhilarate, and throw down the walls of circumstance on every side, awakening in the beholder the same sense of universal relation and power which the work evinced in the artist, and its highest effect is to make new artists."

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