The Happy Prince

For my project I worked with Kevin Lin and we found a statue on the parks website named The Happy Prince. I choose this statue because I never knew it existed even though I walk past it on my way to the Apple Store or simply taking a stroll cross town. The statue itself looks like a pile of rubble that is because its sculptor, , wanted to imitate a scene from a famous children story by Oscar Wilde, called the Happy Prince. Upon closer inspection, one notices the dead swallow mentioned in the final closing scene of the story. The prince, with parts of a shield and boots are buried underneath the rubble. A broken sign displaying “The Happy Prince” is displayed on top of the rubble. Overall the statue is a benign piece of work. It was not exotic and was seemed to be overshadowed by the grand bronze statue across the street. We interviewed three people on their views of whether the statue is a work of art.

We were surprised that there were completely opposite views between the interviewees. While two of the interviewees said it was a work of art because the artist was trying to convey a message and it was a statement or displayed an idea that was in the story, the other did say that it was not a work of art because it did not have any appeal to her. It did not seem to convey a deeper message and it simply was not appealing to her.

In the end I believe that it is a piece of art just not an extraordinary one due to the fact that I also feel that art should be original and this is simply a complete reconstruction of a scene from a book. I also find the idea of art having an appeal interesting since no one had mentioned it in class as a defining characteristic of art. I think it is true since the reason we want to view art is to find something that appeals to us. It is important actually because if art does not appeal why would we create art?