Ashley Powell
E603A, World Literature
Everything is Beautiful
Beauty is everywhere. Whether
created by humans or by God, there is beauty in everything on Earth—in life, in
death; in joy, in sorrow; in luxury, in scarcity. This beauty can be described
as art, as it is “according to aesthetic principles. . . what is beautiful,
appealing, or of more than ordinary significance.”[1] By
observing, analyzing, and appreciating this world overflowing with art, I feel
I can find truth, discover connections, and begin to understand how I fit into
this universe. This goal guides my passion as I endeavor to achieve freedom of
thought through the study of natural creativity and art. As the “Victorian
prophet”[2]
John Ruskin stated, “No human capacity ever yet saw the whole of a thing; but
we may see more and more of it the longer we look. . . .”[3] I
strive to look longer and harder each time I view an image, whether it be a
mountain sunset, a Picasso portrait, or a tangle of interstate overpasses, to
find that elusive truth, that beauty that connects them all. I wish to see the
world as art.
This passion for creativity and beauty has been present in my life since childhood. Some of my earliest and most poignant memories are of crayons, glitter, and glue. I do not remember my sister being born, but I can recall with vivid imagery making her a birthday card while my mother was in the hospital. I always had a strong desire to create, to take something plain and turn it into something unusual, something extraordinary. Even in Kindergarten, I remember the excitement that would flood my immature mind when we went to our weekly art class, a feeling that many of my peers saved for recess or gym. I soon became interested in outside art classes and programs that would expand my knowledge of my own ability to create and appreciate all incarnations of beauty. While I knew I wished to create, I loved being surrounded by the divine art of the natural world. I spent endless hours playing in the bayou and the Edith L. Moore Nature Sanctuary that was located in my neighborhood. I chased tadpoles, picked flowers, fished, and as I played in my childhood innocence, I unconsciously immersed myself in the glorious beauty that a natural setting can afford. Experiencing beauty in nature at such a tender age inspired me to push myself as I grew older to seek out beauty and attempt to replicate it. Because I began to realize this passion for creativity before I was unknowingly influenced by my peers, before I became interested in pop culture, before I knew anything about society, about religion, about the complexity of human life, I feel my passion has solidarity. It is pure and true, or as close to truth as I can fathom.
As
I grew older, I became frustrated with the restrictions and boundaries I sensed
that society placed on my thinking. I felt the pressure to govern my thoughts,
to pursue the path people expected me to follow, to conform to an idea that
happiness and success is achieved by learning facts and figures. I was being
taught to view the world as a tool to be used and not as art to be appreciated.
I felt my mind narrowing, like I was being sucked into a whirlwind of societal
influence that stressed function and practicality. I began to feel isolated: my
life was moving too fast for me to appreciate the beauty that was ubiquitous. I
wanted to succeed; I wanted to find this happiness that was constantly alluded
to. My childish naivety was gone, and my mind had been clouded, causing me to
forget the primal joy that was 
available
from simply stopping and observing. “. . .And now it was the monotony of the
highway that oppressed me—dust under foot and brown crackling hedges on either
side, ever since I could remember.”[4]
The monotony of the mainstream, the unconscious hatred of what was being shoved
down my throat was wearing me down. I found little solace in my peers, those
who unwittingly followed the same road.
Art
saved me. Rediscovering the visual arts by sacrificing classes that would help
me on “the road” for classes that taught me about art and aesthetic
satisfaction caused me to remember my original passion for beauty. I took
notice of my idle doodling (which had never ceased throughout my frustration),
and began to truly study what I was observing, focusing on the intricacies and
complexity of the images I found myself repeatedly 
sketching,
almost unconsciously. None of my sketches were perfect—none were even close—but
there was a certain beauty in my mistakes, in my failures. For these errors
“more clearly confess [their] human fallibility, their inability to fully
substitute for nature itself: ‘it is precisely in its expression of this
inferiority that the drawing itself becomes valuable.’”[5] This
human attempt to express feelings, symbols, and archetypes is what makes art so
wonderful. We try to express the natural through the artificial, but in doing
so create something that is visceral, something that gets at the heart of how
we see ourselves and our place in the world.
As I pursue my passion for the appreciation of beauty, I discover that the art created by humans throughout history provides a window to our most primal fears, desires, and questions. From early cave drawings to modern cartoons, certain archetypal images—the gentle woman, the brave warrior, the wise elder—prevail. Our need to portray what we see and what we feel connects us to our past, present, and future. Even in our most primitive state, we painted on stone walls; before we could write, we drew pictures. Consciously or unconsciously, we constructed symbols and icons that were left to be interpreted.
We see symbols of adoration in
statues of Greek gods, Spartan athletes, resting Buddhas;
they are found everywhere, from Mayan temples to the Lincoln Memorial. These
figures serve no practical function, they perform no task, rather, they were
created with the intention of providing something tangible to express what that
person saw as ideal or worthy of worship. This art is the signature of
civilization, a specific culture’s attempts at recreating what is beautiful,
what is divine. Medieval and Renaissance paintings of the Nativity, of Mary,
even of the Crucifixion, are images of the abstract concepts—fundamental ideas
concerning Life, Death, and an unknown power that directs it all, that are
characteristic of religion. They are beautiful in how they fill spirituality
with humanity, for though they are not perfect, they show the human attempt at
faith, hope, comfort, or even fear. The observer can see from these pieces how
the artist viewed God and how he responded to such abstract ideas. The artist
searches for such an image within, while the observer draws connections to his
own opinions and conclusions based on the context, the intention of the artist,
and what the art inspires in his own mind. As it inspires this chain of
reflection, art has the unique ability to connect us on both conscious and
unconscious levels as we analyze and relate to both the literal and
metaphorical aspect of a piece. In doing so, art provides a link between our
own ideas and those of others from all periods of time.
As religious art provides tangible
windows into what I regard as spiritual, landscape and natural art has taught
me how to view and appreciate the beauty I am constantly surrounded with. This
Holy art has the ability to give rest to those who are weary from the toils of
“the road.” Its “disparate intentions, [its] prodigal disarray,”[6]
allow me to free my minds from its constant need to organize, to stratify, to
look for opportunity and progress. I can see truth in its purest form, for this
is what is real—nature has nothing to hide from us. The realist focuses “not on
beauty, but on truth;”[7] he
hopes to share the emotion he felt when viewing this landscape, to inspire the
observer to find that elusive truth the artist has seen in nature. As I
appreciate both these rendered landscapes and real life experiences, I am
reminded that the effect of nature on my psyche is immeasurable; it shows me
God, free from intervention or interruption. As I hiked among the
In
my claim that all things in the world are beautiful, one might wonder as to how
I can make this assertion when we live in a world full of hostility and anger.
We have strayed so far from the divine Garden that the primitive beauty has
become warped into something ugly, something that deserves no appreciation.
Everyday we are faced with poverty, anger, jealousy, and greed. However, by
gaining compassion for these pure emotions, for those who suffer and 
for
the natural cycle of life and death, joy and sadness, we can learn to
appreciate them simply for the beauty they exhibit in their pure forms. They
are human, they exist, and with sympathy we can appreciate them. In both cases
where compassion or aesthetic appreciation is difficult, the only real barrier
is the limitations of the mind. Because “the whole scope of observation is
dwarfed into the narrow chamber of the individual mind,”[8] we
view things through a preconceived stereotype of what is beautiful or what is
worthy of sympathy and love, “each mind keeping as a solitary prisoner in its
own dream of a world.”[9] We
are blinded by misconceptions; for we, as humans, exhibit the basic need to
categorize and objectify the constant flux of sensory information are minds
deal with at each moment. Because we “hardly have time to make theories about
the things we see and touch,”[10]
we automatically rely on our basic stereotypical, bestial instincts.
By
“never acquiescing in a facile orthodoxy,”[11]
we can broaden our minds to accept pure love, compassion, and appreciation of
each precious moment of life. In the words of Victor Hugo, “we are all under
sentence of death but with a sort of indefinite reprieve,”[12]
and to achieve happiness in this fleeting life we “attain peace by injuring no
living creature”[13] and
appreciate the beauty of life “frankly to give nothing but the highest quality
to your moments as they pass, and simply 
for
those moments’ sake.”[14]
As I am drawn to
natural art for its virginal beauty and preservation of a primitive
I
do not know if my passion will fit into my future in the form of a career or
major, but rather, I see it as a lifestyle. I chose my current majors for their
generality; I saw them as foundations for opportunity. As I carry the spirit of
art with me, I know that this alone may not guarantee me stability later in
life. Perhaps this is the effect of my years on “the road,” but nevertheless
the thought cannot escape me. I pursue Mechanical Engineering in the hope that
I may someday use these technical skills to create something wonderful,
something that can be appreciated for both its function and beauty by all who
admire it. However, I know that it will be challenging to avoid the temptation
of high paying jobs with large companies that could pull me into a career of
greed. I fear the potential limitations I may face in this path, and because of
this anxiety I chose to expand my education into the Liberal Arts. I hope that
Plan II will continue to broaden my view of the world and its beauty as I gain
an understanding of a wide variety of subjects, allowing me to expand my career
options and guide me towards a life of fulfillment. Wherever life takes me, I
am confident I will never abandon my love for art and will continually strive
to implement it in all aspects of my life. Through my passion for art and
beauty, I can find who I am, who I was, who I may someday be, and the
relationships of all these personas to that of the millions of artists that
came before me.
Word Count: 2,082 (without quotes)
503 words added.