Beauty emerges from fitting use of materials at hand
Evidence
Similarly, in a steep-walled canyon on which is written the drama of ages of erosion and deposit, though the major aspect is not commonly thought to be aesthetic, the beauty of it can be made to appear in this larger sense. I sometimes wonder whether almost all of what we are trying to interpret does not fall, at last, into this realm of the aesthetic, inand out-of-doors. Following this thought, the sod house of the Dakota settlers becomes not merely a bit of social history, but something beautiful, because man used to full purpose that which he found of the materials at hand. I once saw a structure in Big Bend National Park mostly built of the dry flower stalks of the agave and of ocotillo stems, roofed with rushes from the river bank. Was that not beautiful? It is when we resort to cunning inventions that we so often create the truly ugly. — Freeman Tilden, Interpreting Our Heritage, 519
Categorization
- ADDENDUM: Directly strengthens the ‘Grafting & Growth’ argument about vernacular building and materials-at-hand; the sod house and ocotillo structure echo root-bridge and tamarisk examples of fitting use.
- SEED: Angle: ‘ugly landscapes’ — Craters-of-the-Moon, lava fields, eroded canyons — as the interpreter’s real proving ground, an essay on reading disturbance and function into places we don’t call pretty.
- recurring: this claim recurs 2 times within its source
- XREF: connects to: Perceived authenticity of a thing heightens its aesthetic value — W. David Marx, Status and Culture: How Our Desire for…, 265; Close sensory detail reveals character through material texture — Hilary Mantel, A Memoir of My Former Self- A Life in…, 405; Style denotes marks that bring things into being, fusing appearance with essence — Anna Kornbluh, Immediacy, or The Style of Too Late…, 27 (+1 more)
Broader Connections
- Perceived authenticity of a thing heightens its aesthetic value
#corroborates(0.75) — W. David Marx, Status and Culture, 265 - Style denotes marks that bring things into being, fusing appearance with essence
#expands(0.75) — Anna Kornbluh, Immediacy, or The Style of Too Late…, 27 - Close sensory detail reveals character through material texture
#exemplifies(0.72) — Hilary Mantel, A Memoir of My Former Self- A Life in…, 405 - Aesthetic practices broker between Being and Becoming.
#complicates(0.72) — David Harvey, The Condition of Postmodernity, 2043