But is it art ?

Came across this delightfully gratuitous bench unexpectedly on an otherwise unremarkable walk.

The carving is so splendidly unnecessary that it grabs you by the lapel and forces you to look. The sentiment isn't profound, or even interesting, but the animation of the lettering and the vigour of the twining support are just arresting. It's a visual version of the ancient mariner, but this bench probably has a better hit-rate than one in three.

The end carving is probably a mistake, but if the mystery carver did the lettering first, it would have been a wrench to chuck the plank away, and you can't just rub out carved errors. They last. I guess that the end carving is just too whimsical and visually vagrant. It just loses its way.

But the delight of stumbling onto this bench was just enormous.

Maybe art has to have a pointlessness to it to engage you. This bench did not need any embellishment. As a bench it was just fine. Effective, lean, natural, a restful delight. But without the carving it could never have elicited something very like glee.