Creativity from Without

When I think of artists, my first assumption is that they are people who create works based on their own imagination, inspired by personal experiences.  It is a common stereotype that artists express their own emotions through various materials, or media.  

However, this stereotype disregards a more modern form of art that integrates pre-existing elements of the natural world into a final piece.  Rather than artists creating "from within," they are instead creating "from without."  This means that artists look for inspiration from the natural world in their work.

An example of this type of art that I find fascinating is Japanese Rice Field Art.  People have taken rice paddies, large green fields, and transformed them into aesthetically pleasing works of art.  How is this possible?  They plant different varieties of rice that naturally have varying leaf colors, allowing the plants to act as elements of light and dark contrast in the aerial images these crops become.  These rice crop artists are essentially "drawing" an image by determining the location of each plant in the field.

The amazing thing about Japanese Rice art is its large scale.  In order to fully appreciate the contrast of the different colored plants, the fields have to be viewed from a certain distance above them.  Up close, the plants do not appear to form any kind of organized visual image.  It would be easy to overlook their beauty as a composition if one simply walked through one of these decorative rice fields.

Another interesting element of Japanese Rice Art is that these rice field artists can create replicas of fine art pieces, such as the Mona Lisa.  It is a juxtaposition of the permanence of ancient art and the temporary growth of rice crops.  We normally think of art in the natural world as more abstract, such as making patterns with rocks and leaves, so the creation of Leonardo da Vinci's masterpiece in a rice paddy links this modern form of art to the legacy of the old masters of Italian art.

While most of the art created in natural environments isn't built to last, that shouldn't take away from its validity as a form of art.  Whether it lasts for a fleeting moment, a few months, or multiple centuries, all art should be appreciated as a way for people to produce something beautiful and share it with others.