The Necessity of Beauty
In the aftermath of the assault on the capital building, one congressman used his time at the podium -- in a moment when he was on national television and had the eyes and ears of the world -- to speak not about the attack on democracy, not about the physical threat to the representatives, not about the terror he faced personally, but about beauty. For him, the destruction inside the capitol building, its art and decoration, was as enraging as the loss of life.
As I watched him speak, a member of Congress whose name I did not note and cannot remember, I was struck by his passion. Not to place the loss of human life or that causing suffering is ever greater than the loss of material objects, but he touched on an idea that is important to me as well. Beauty is more than ornament; it is not something added at the end to make something more appealing. It is an intrinsic part of how we as human beings perceive the world and how we find meaning.
This is not a skin-deep, air-brushed, Instagram idea of beauty, but something deeper found in the concept of Hózhó. Hózhó is said to be the most important word in the Navajo language and is loosely translated as peace, balance, beauty, and harmony. Hózhó encompasses both a way of living and a state of being, and to be “in Hózhó” is to be at one with and a part of the world, to be guided in thought, action, behavior, and speech by a deeper moral ideology.
Over my twenty-five years teaching art history, I have found similar ideas in other artistic times. The Arts and Crafts Movement of the late nineteenth century, a reaction against the ugliness and homogeneity of the Industrial Revolution, the artist and entrepreneur William Morris advocated for items that were handmade and showcased different skills, including painting and architecture but also furniture making, needlework, and typography. Morris stated, “If you want a golden rule that will fit everything, this is it: Have nothing in your houses that you do not know to be useful or believe to be beautiful.” The goals of the Arts and Crafts Movement extended beyond decorating a room; buying items made by artists ensured the continuation of the different practices and kept workers out of the dark, dreary, and dangerous factories and kept these skills alive.
As the late nineteenth- early twentieth-century architect Louis Sullivan famously said, “form ever follows function,” a dictum he followed in his own buildings. This phrase does not mean that a building should not have decoration. Rather, Sullivan used decoration strategically to enhance the design of the structure and to make a building more efficient and comprehensible for human use. Sullivan’s onetime assistant Frank Lloyd Wright noted that “Form follows function - that has been misunderstood. Form and function should be one, joined in a spiritual union.” In their buildings, both Sullivan and Wright demonstrate the importance of beauty, that every home, office, and museum they designed must be pleasing to the eye as well as functional.
2020 has been a difficult year. We have all lost things we never thought possible to lose, whether it has been a loved one, a friend, a job. We have lost a sense of confidence in our world, our sense of place. I find comfort in the concept of hózhó, focusing on my place in the world and trying to make it just a bit better. Coming to the gallery to see the beautiful works in the “Good Things in Small Packages” inspires me and I’m so grateful to the artists for sharing their works with us: Celestino Crowhill, Del Curfman, Ishkoten Dougi, Garrett Etsitty, Chaz John, Julia Lambright, Terran Last Gun, Ira Lujan, Rhett Lynch, Daniel McCoy Jr., Nathan N. Nez Jr., Jazmin Novak, Alex Peña, Jeanette Aguilar Rocha, Deborah Sipple, David Gary Suazo, Antoinette Thompson, Michael Toya, Peterson Yazzie, and Sun Youn. I am inspired by the works they shared, especially Daniel McCoy’s Aspens in Fall pictured here. The artist’s abstracted landscape captures the high desert air, the sounds of the wind flowing through the trees, while evoking mid-twentieth century Modernism. These works help bring Hózhó into the world.
