Systematic Beauty.

                                                                            Frost.

Why do people take so many pictures of it? What makes frozen water particles that were suspended in the air and then deposited on a solid surface so visually arresting?

Why is anything able to grab our attention and draw the gaze of many, eventually garnering the title of "beautiful"? What makes that happen?

It's interesting how the idea of beauty is so universal, yet there is so little empirical evidence that gives us a reasonable explanation as to what is beautiful and what is (for lack of a better term) gross. What interests me most about this... this idea of "art", is that even though there is no way to scientifically test the human reaction to lines, shapes, colors and other assorted factors that go into making something beautiful, there is an exact and systematic process by which all of these factors are combined and applied and lighted, positioned, viewed, etc. that brings about the base components of "Art" in the first place.

Also, It interests me in a curious/frustrated way that all the necessary factors for "art" should occur routinely every time i park my car out side between September and March. ("Oh man, looks like nature art-ed all over my windshield again. And since i'm an idiot and never remember to buy a scraper, i'll have to use my pocket knife and fingernails to create a fist-sized hole which will be my sole visual cue until my defrost kicks in.)

But think about it. When an artist splashes pain on a canvas in a seemingly arbitrary and half-hazard attitude, the cohesion of the paint combined with the physical forces acting upon the globules (gravity, initial velocity, wind resistance, splatter effects, gunshot wounds) are what make the paint behave in the way that it does, resulting in a aethestically pleasing (to some, I suppose) display of artistic angst and possibly laziness that the artist was hoping to achieve.

I've always been of the mind that the aloof and socially inept mechanization processes that govern our universe, solar system, and a vast majority of thrown deli meats would not have an intimate relationship with the footloose and whimsical bird that is art. But not only do they have a relationship, they are even accepted, nay, sought after to grace the halls and dining rooms of the most illustrious dinner parties, be it in the form of canvas, marble, or a massive pile of feathers.

The seemingly incompatible and awkward couple that is science and beauty stride gracefully through the corridor of time. Leaving tokens of their appreciation in the minds of great artists of renown,

while sometimes maliciously depositing flaming bags of dog poop in the minds of other "Artists"

  

 

Respectively, a giant inflatable piece of poop, and a three legged dog created from the artists hair clippings and bubble gum. People actually set out to make these things. This is not an accident.

So the next time that you see your run out to your car, already late for some important meeting that will determine the fate of your job or unstable relationship, and you see that mother nature has painted a delicate and interwoven memoir to purity amidst the harshness of winter, take a moment to slow down and recognize it for the beauty and complexity and the marvel of science and grace that it is. Then go back inside, make some Jasmine Chun Hao tea, and reflect on the delicacy and interwoven painting that is life and the flow of the cosmos.


Or, furiously scribble a pear-sized viewing hole, inevitably located in such a way that the only position that will allow you to maintain visual contact with the outside world is one that the unaltered human body has no potential for, which will eventually lead you to kick out your entire front windshield at the first available stop sign.