First Dewey Question

Can living things, such as plants, flowers, trees, etc. be considered living pieces of art, even though it is commonly believed they cannot possess the sincerity it takes to make true art?


If we go by Dewey's/Tolstoy's belief that true art requires sincerity from the artist, then it is a very difficult question to answer.  Do plants make themselves beautiful colors or present themselves as beauty for gratification from other plants and other non-plant entities?  How could we even prove such a thing?


Well, I'm going to go out on a limb and say that the plants aren't intending to be living pieces of art, but they do intend to be attractive to the eye.  Flowers are bright and attractive colors to attract insects to help them pollinate and reproduce, so in this sense they are intending to be beautiful.  However, does this mean that they are intending to evoke aesthetic pleasure in the viewer?


That is a different question all together.  In this case, it seems that plants aren't trying to communicate a feeling that they are having, especially since it is up to debate whether or not plants actually have feelings.  And if they do, do plants have the capacity to interpret their feelings and somehow morph their appearance to express them?  Somehow, I doubt it.


In my opinion, what humans call "living pieces of art" such as certain types of flora is a purely human thing.  We like to assign beauty and meaning to things which originally didn't have them until we came along.  So, my answer to this question would be only to humans, because we make them that way in our minds.