3 Good Things (Embodied Abstractions edition)

“By a selective re-creation, art isolates and integrates those aspects of reality which represent man’s fundamental view of himself and of existence. Out of the countless number of concretes—of single, disorganized and (seemingly) contradictory attributes, actions and entities—an artist isolates the things which he regards as metaphysically essential and integrates them into a single new concrete that represents an embodied abstraction.”

Ayn Rand “The Psycho-Epistemology of Art,” The Romantic Manifesto, 19.

1. Delight

If food can be art, then this piece of art speaks to my very soul (in that it attracts me like no other cake has before). Its obviously stable, but seemingly precarious fanciful form, vibrant, celebratory colors, and crisp animal print icing compels me to look at it over and over again, and smile each time.

(via Cake Wrecks – a hilarious blog – and created by Sharon of Sharon’s Cake Art)

Hello…Stephen…are you reading this? October isn’t too far away.

2. Justice

“…And Justice for All” by James Muir

Despite the fact that I can’t really figure out Mr. Muir’s philosophy, I am quite enamored of his version of a bolder Justice wielding her double-edged sword of Power and Reason. (I found the symbolic meaning of the double-edge sword from a Wikipedia entry, but I couldn't confirm it elsewhere. It make sense to me, though.)

(via Beth at AisA Academy)

3. Potential
I published this before as my own attempt at the embodiment of an abstraction. To me, this photograph represents the unlimited capacity of a child (my daughter in this case) to experience the joy in the possibilities of the world. It reminds me of the line, "Yours is the Earth, and everything that's in it," from the great Rudyard Kipling poem, If.