To me, the most intriguing way of looking at dragons’
significance was as either “genii loci, the spirits of their place…[or as] defenders of a querencia”
(Bump, schedule on website), especially after the extend to which we’ve been
discussing the importance of architecture in relation to its environment. I
think we’ve established a common belief that it is essential that the values,
mindset, and goals of a place to be represented in its architecture. I saw the
use of dragon icons on a building as an aspect of architecture that
encapsulates and represents something that is a vital characteristic of the
place itself. The most clear and obvious example of this is
Oxford
. As mentioned before, the gargoyles at
Oxford
tie the college
back to its strong religious roots. After all,
Oxford
’s early reputation was based on theology and the liberal arts” (Britannica). Gargoyles
are also very appropriate there since they represent to everyone a sense of age
and continuity in time. I associate dragons, at least in the sense that they
are used on college campuses and as gargoyles, with the ideals of a university,
with age, and with intellectualism.
However, even though we have all professed how much we
have been made to think by the icon of the dragon, I found it interesting that
there really are not many dragons to be seen on UT’s campus. All the dragons
that have been pointed out to us are not images that we would encounter on a
daily basis: we don’t have access, or much reason to go, to the Littlefield
House; the stained glass of St. Michael is inside a church; and the dragons
found on Sutton Hall are on the ceiling of the porches and impossible to see
when walking by. Our campus environment is essentially lacking frequent images
of the grotesque, especially if we compare ours to the campus of
Oxford
or other
universities built in a gothic style.
Our dragons
compared to
Oxford
’s
gargoyles.
So how does that change our experience? We don’t have
Oxford
’s strong, religious roots or the
history and climate that compliment other universities’ use of dragons and
gargoyles. Are there other images that are more appropriate guardians of our querencia here at UT? And if so, what would they be? I
posed these questions to myself, and found it difficult to come up with a
satisfying answer. All of the images I associated with UT would make ridiculous
UT gargoyles. Bevo’s adorning the buildings would be
laughable and the
Texas
star isn’t unique enough to keep the symbol from fading into anonymity. I then
tried to find an image that was already present around campus and that could
function in the same way as
Oxford
’s
dragons and gargoyles. Something that we all by now are very familiar with is
the image of the shell, and it can be found on many buildings across campus is
the shell. To us, they represent intellectualism and our pilgrimage, while also
suggesting a sense of age by their link to fossils. Perhaps our shells at UT
encompass some of the same value as the gargoyles and dragons on
Oxford
’s ancient
buildings.
Sources:
Bump,
schedule on website <http://www.cwrl.utexas.edu/%7Ebump/E603/scheduleFall06.html>
"
Oxford
,
University of." Encyclopædia Britannica.
. Encyclopædia Britannica Online Library Edition.
<http://library.eb.com/eb/article-9057828>.
