3743. First of all it was very smooth, shiny, and pure
white. You would think that if it was white and shiny it would appear to be
more valuable and also more sought after as a collectable work of art, but just
the opposite was the case. For some reason the best and most valuable marble
sculpture is always dirty, dingy, yellowed and chipped, and even damaged.
3744. Not only is it desirable for old sculpture to be
damaged and dirty, it is best if there are even parts missing and sections
broken off altogether. Since this is so, shiny, pure white, smooth and
faultless works in marble look cheap and lacking in a certain seriousness. This
fact has led many an artist in the past to bury their works in the ground for a
period of time, and then dig them up again with the hopes of improving their
appearance, or rather, of ruining their appearance in a desirable way, which
ever you prefer.
3745. Those artists who bury their sculptures in the ground
in the hopes of making them look more antique are often disappointed with the
results of the resurrection of their creations. They had hoped that the simple
addition of accelerated aging would have turned their inadequate forms into something rich and strange, but find instead that the work remains uninspired,
if it was uninspired when it was buried.
3746. It is then that they resort to desperate measures and
picking up a hammer begin to smash away at their work in the mistaken belief
that the damage they inflict will finally transform some inadequate piece of
sculpture into a ruin that will move a viewer to a poetic moment in which they
find themselves transported to some ancient place and time.
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