Nicole Voyles On the Nature In Art. 2/8/11

landscape art is particularly interesting to me since I am a botanist. I like to have wild scenes in my yard, however I certainly appreciate the art in a symmetrical garden or a nicely sloping drive with specially placed trees to line it in glorious flowery spring, shaded summer, colorful autumn or barren edged winter. It is easy for most people to walk right by these often intricate scenes and pay no mind, but I have a botanist's eye so I do not. I love the way a grove of trees meets at the top to form a natural ceiling to shelter one from the harsh sun or spring rains. To plant things that will grow in such a way takes care and that care is the art, the artist being landscape architect. Art is found even in unplanned places, such as a pile of leaves, left forgotten for the winter, that sprout a new garden in spring. Art is left in the eye of the beholder to value, no doubt, but is it possible that someone, having unknowingly created it, could be judged as an artist by accident? I think he may, if his creation, no matter how unintentional, is viewed by even only one to have artistic value.