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God the artist
When our daughter, Penny, was a child, she hated sunset; to her it heralded the death of the day. Now that she has grown up and has tapped her natural artistic talents she, like the rest of mankind, loves watching the kaleidoscope of varying hues of dazzling orange and pink and red vying for pre-eminence in the low, western clouds. My wife, Martha, also a natural artist, waxes quite enthusiastic whenever she spots a cloud of exceptional form. Sunsets. Clouds. All things bright and beautiful. Did their overpowering beauty come into being as a fortuitous outcome of the ancient, massive inflation (explosion) we call the Big Bang? I guess if the stork dropped you in the cabbage patch then just maybe beauty sprang from a searing blast.
Maybe it's been said a million times before, but I don't care; I'm going to say it again. The beauty of the world around us defies natural (atheistic) explanations; it bears testimony to an infinitely beautiful mind. Painters, musicians, and sculptors devote their lives to learning the secrets of loveliness so they can create gorgeous works of art that command admiration from one and all. Yet the top fashion designers of Solomon's time could not dream up textiles and cuts of cloth and unique jewelry that could outdo the exquisiteness of a common meadow flower.
I'm no artist, that's for sure. But that doesn't stop me from recognizing the "surround beauty" of nature. Everywhere you turn in nature, and at every scale you consider - from atoms to spiral galaxies, from a flower's petals to a desert vista - beauty wraps you in its embrace, caressing and comforting you. To God goes the glory.
Give almost any stone to a lapidarist to polish, and the revealed patterns will prove attractive at the worst and stunning at the best. Timber from virtually any tree pleases the eye when polished up. The beauty of Solomon's jewelry was possible only because nature provided his jewelers with raw materials that could be worked with. The splendor of a feather - its form, texture, and color - defies description. Even the blandest-looking wearer of feathers is a work of art. I wish we didn't have sparrows around here, but even their commonness and peskiness do not diminish their genuine beauty when viewed without prejudice. The sinuous, graceful movements of a leopard stalking a dik-dik make a work of fluid art. We are surrounded by art!
Would it be foolish to suggest that nothing in unspoiled nature is ugly? A stonefish would never win a beauty contest, but its very unsightliness imparts an indescribable charm that borders on cuteness. Sure, I don't relish seeing a scurrying rat, nor would I wish to come face to face with a shark's open jaws, but let's not equate menace or fear with aesthetic repulsiveness. Spiders and snakes may scare you, but can you, in all honesty, damn them as ugly?
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By the same token, seems to me that every natural sound is aesthetically appealing. I have yet to hear a sound generated by any animal or by the inanimate
environment that rankles. Even the screeching of a cockatoo or howling of a coyote evoke a sense of delight in me. The sound of wind rustling through trees, of tree branches rubbing together, of waves crashing on rocks - don't you find them all pleasurable? Thunder may frighten you, but doesn't it also resonate in your very soul?
Perhaps it may sound like a sweeping generalization, but I assert that nature doesn't present us with any eyesores or baleful sounds. Now in all honesty I can't say the same observation applies to every one of nature's smells or feels; getting a nose full of voodoo lily fragrance or brushing against a stinging nettle are not hymn singing experiences, for instance. But they are interesting ones!
Someone may retort that beauty is simply an automatic outcome of the laws of matter, that any combination of form and texture and color cannot help but be pleasing to the human mind; don't give credit to some alleged Supreme Artist. Bilge! Contrast the decayed remains of a man-made city with weathered, lichen-encrusted outcrops of rock that have had millions of years of opportunity to grow ugly. And when was the last time you visited a garbage dump to savor its delightful forms and inspiring textures? The potential for achieving beautiful outcomes by judiciously mixing nature's basic components - forms, colors, textures, angles - may be nearly infinite, but the number of uglies one could create utilizing exactly the same components would be far greater, just as the potential for creating horrific "music" by arbitrarily stringing all sorts of sounds together vastly outdoes the potential for creating inspiring symphonies and toe-tapping polkas. Yet nature is conspicuously lacking in ugliness. Human beings make many earsores; don't Microsoft's beeps and bings drive you crazy?
It even takes talent to make a bigger work of art out of smaller works of art. I have been playing with computer graphics lately. I have purchased some digital 3D models of beautiful animals and plants and tried my hand at composing pleasant scenes. I doubt anybody would describe the results as attractive. A beautiful scene requires not only lovely components but intelligent composition. (See "The Art of Composition".) Every landscape in nature consists of a skilful composition of aesthetically-pleasing components, such as rocks and trees, flora and fauna. I have yet to see a repulsive unspoiled landscape. Sure, landscapes are the product of natural processes, but who made the processes? God ensured that even the physical and chemical aspects of weathering would produce masterpieces! All the credit must go to the Supreme Artist!
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