Many
people were surprised that George Washington Carver painted flowers as well as
studied them scientifically. But to him, art and science were both ways of
approaching the truth, and there was no dissonance between them. Here is a
scene from Linda O. McMurray’s book, George
Washington Carver: Scientist and Symbol, page 302:
[Carver] reached across the table
for a tiny green herb. The soil still clung to its threadlike roots.
“All these years,” the artist
continued, looking at the weed in his hand, “I have been doing one thing. The
poet Tennyson was working at the same job. This is the way he expresses it:
Flower in the
crannied wall
I pluck you out of
the crannies,
I hold you here,
root and all, in my hand,
Little flower—but
it I could understand
What you are, root
and all, and all in all,
I should know what
God and man is...
“Tennyson was seeking Truth. That is
what the scientist is seeking. That is what the artist is seeking; his
writings, his weaving, his music, his pictures are just the expressions of his
soul in his search for Truth.
“My paintings are my soul’s
expression of its yearnings and questions in its desire to understand the work
of the Great Creator.”
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