Art is simplicity.   In a world where multi-tasking has become a cult and complexity worshiped, art becomes superfluous.  Simply unneeded and unimportant.  Or does it?

I was at my doctor’s office  a few months back for my just before the treatments meeting.  We were having our risks and benefits discussion.  He spoke a bit about the complexity of the human body and how he was amazed the thing works at all.   It brought to mind the ancient Greek sculptor, Praxiteles.

This master of simplicity was able to cloak the complexity of the body in a soft mantle of marble.  He made the human body beautiful and elegant, in action and in repose.   Thousands of years later, no one has been able to match his gift.  Not even (dare I say it?) the blessed Michaelangelo.

There are artists who change things forever:  Praxiteles, Vitruvius, Michelangelo, Bach.   They frame the forms and define the endeavor.  Steve Jobs created complex machinery and in that way, he is the Edison of our time.    But how he chose to display it makes him the Praxiteles of our time. Like the great sculptor, he took cold, hard materials and made them soft and fluid.  He took mind boggling complexity and made it simple.

There are artists who have singular gifts to give humanity.   They are not replaceable and the world mourns the loss for centuries.  Steve Jobs is one of those humans.   And his art?  Certainly NOT superfluous.