My art is an attempt to reach beyond the surface appearance. I

The artist Andy Goldsworthy, sculptor of earth and seeker of hidden harmonies, once declared: “My art is an attempt to reach beyond the surface appearance. I want to see growth in wood, time in stone, nature in a city, and I do not mean its parks but a deeper understanding that a city is nature too—the ground upon which it is built, the stone with which it is made.” In these words he reveals not merely an artist’s method, but a vision of existence itself—that beneath the facades of things lies a deeper current, uniting city and forest, stone and sky, human work and the eternal rhythm of nature.

When Goldsworthy speaks of reaching “beyond the surface appearance,” he is calling us to resist the temptation of shallow seeing. To look at wood and see only lumber is blindness; to look at stone and see only weight is ignorance. True seeing discerns the invisible within the visible—the years in the grain of the wood, the ancient ages in the stone, the pulse of the earth even beneath the hard pavements of the city. His art, made of leaves, ice, stone, and earth, is not about decoration but revelation. It unveils the secret unity of things, reminding us that all matter bears the imprint of time, growth, and life.

His phrase “nature in a city” is especially striking. We often imagine nature and the city as opposites—wilderness versus civilization, green versus grey. But Goldsworthy reminds us that the city itself is not alien to nature; it is born from it. The stone of buildings is quarried from the mountains, the iron forged from ore deep in the earth, the wood once grew as trees. Even the ground beneath the city is soil, rock, and root. To recognize this is to break the illusion of separation and rediscover the truth: that human creation is but another expression of the natural world, shaped and reshaped by its forces.

History offers proof of this vision. The Colosseum of Rome, though weathered by centuries, still stands as a mountain of stone, its arches as enduring as cliffs shaped by wind and water. The Great Pyramids of Egypt, once dazzling in white limestone, are at once monuments of human ambition and continuations of the desert itself. Even modern skyscrapers, though clad in steel and glass, gleam with minerals drawn from the earth, their height echoing the striving of trees toward the sun. The city, far from being the enemy of nature, is built upon it, from it, and within it.

The deeper meaning of Goldsworthy’s teaching is that we must learn to see continuity instead of division. When we treat nature as separate from our lives, we alienate ourselves from the very ground of being. But when we see the living presence of time and growth in everything—in wood, in stone, in the walls of our cities—we regain reverence. Then our works cease to be acts of conquest and become acts of dialogue, conversations between man and earth, creation and Creator.

The lesson for us is profound: train your eyes to see beyond surfaces. Do not stop at what is obvious, but seek the story beneath. In a tree’s rings, see the years of sun and rain. In a stone, see the ages of pressure and fire. In the city around you, see not concrete alone, but the hidden presence of earth, transformed yet still alive. When you walk, remember that the ground beneath your feet is ancient, and that every building is born of the same forces that shape mountains and rivers.

Practically, this means cultivating attentiveness. Spend time in nature, yes, but also look at your cities with new eyes. Recognize the veins of marble in a building as once being the veins of a mountain. Recognize that time, weather, and growth act even on the human world—cracks in the sidewalk, moss on the bricks, ivy on the walls. Let these things remind you that you, too, are part of this fabric, neither above nor apart from it.

Thus Goldsworthy’s words are not only about art—they are a meditation on life itself. His work of stone and leaf, ice and branch, is an invitation to see differently: to pierce the veil of appearance and rediscover the sacred continuity of all things. The city is nature. The stone is time. The wood is growth. And when we learn to see in this way, we will walk more humbly, build more wisely, and live more deeply in harmony with the earth that holds us all.