Artists 22, Philistines 14

Keeping score of campus sculptures.

A FRIEND AND I recently took a sculpture walk around the Dartmouth campus. We found lots to admire. We liked the bas-relief of Ernest Martin Hopkins on the brick wall in front of Hopkins Center. We liked the light bronze globe—a globe pierced by Time's arrow, as all colleges tare—in the court in front of Hinman P.O. We loved the massive thunderbirdy figure just inside the main entrance to the Hop. "What wonderful balance!" exclaimed my friend Cynthia. She's right.

One of our favorites was even a student work. We both were tickled by one of the many student sculptures we saw in Clement Hall. Joanna Kidd '99 had made a striking, slightly larger-than- life green woman—a woman composed entirely of chicken wire and green stringbeans. Lots of green stringbeans. She's half reclining. Cynthia and I agreed that the sculpture is simultaneously witty, charming, and a bit voluptuous. I was glad to learn from Ms. Kidd's teacher in figure sculpture class, Professor Brenda Garand, that the green woman rmay last a year, if given a little care. If she could last 50, I'd say put her in the permanent collection.

We also found many sculptures that we like but had reservations about. Have you ever noticed the bronze girl standing on a little platform in the pool in front of Hinman P.O.? She has an interesting stance, a striking angularity, a powerful upward tension.

Cynthia liked her even better than I (who have known her for years, and felt sony for her every winter—she looks so cold). But all the same, admitted Cyn, "she does look anorexic, and she seems to be clothed in a bronze version of Saran Wrap."

The real surprise in my "like- with-reservations" category is one to be found in Darling, the beautiful little open-air court in the center of the Hop. On one wall hangs a bas-relief of Cezanne sculpted by Renoir. You don't get loftier than that. In the matched greatness of artist and subject it's not unique, but it's rare. I can think of only one American example: the biography of Nathaniel Hawthorne published by Henry James in 1879.

We were prepared to feel awed. Instead we shrugged. It's okay. I wouldn't throw Renoir out the window. But the ornamental border is clunky, and Cezanne's face has only traces of an expression. Green beans is better.

Now it was time for a little mischief. You want to see the ugliest sculpture on campus?" I asked. ''Lead on," said Cyn. So I took her to X-Delta, which now stands in the sculpture court behind the Hood Museum.

Anyone who was in Hanover in the mids eventies will remember X-Delta. It used to sit in front of Sanborn House like an enormous pimple on a pretty face. It's made of rusty I-beams, and looks as if a couple of construction workers had decided to parody modern art. Or so I remembered feeling.

Back when X-Delta got set up, I used to laugh to myself over the ridiculous claims for it. "It's an incredibly beautiful piece," said Jan van der Mark, then director of Dartmouth's art galleries. He added that he could understand why philistines like me had trouble perceiving the incredible beauty, but give us time. We would come around.

Well, he was right. When Cynthia and I got to X-Delta, which I hadn't laid eyes on in a decade, I didn't hate it. In fact I rather liked those rusty beams. Partly what I liked, to be sure, was the decorative motif provided by the four students who where comf ortably perched on various parts of it, but I liked the I-beams, too. So did Cyn, who soon found a perch herself. Give me another 20 years and I may even think it's a work of art.

Meanwhile, I decided to play my trump card. "Come on," I said. "I'm going to show you the Thel."

You may not recognize the name, but if you've been on campus in recent years you've seen Thel. Thel is that line of progressively larger pyramids—well, sort of pyramids—in front of the Fairchild Science Center. They're white, pointy, and silly. The biggest of them is a sort of tipi as well as a sort of leaning pyramid. It is poss ible to get in the tipi. But I have never seen a student do this, if only because it's so ugly in there.

What should the College do with Thel? In my opinion we should thel it. At a bar- gain price.