Lucinda Breeding

George Cadell’s bronze sculpture isn’t exactly the stuff of the 21st-century media culture.

It doesn’t have excessive flash. It doesn’t refer to itself. It doesn’t have the audacity of an advertisement.

George Cadell’s sculpture isn’t clever, cute or corny.

It’s deep.

Cadell added another stunner to Denton’s public art scene a few weeks ago. The sculpture, Above All Integrity, is in the courtyard of City Hall East, where locals line up to pay utility bills and ticket fines. It’s a thinker, this sculpture.

But what does “Above All Integrity” mean?

If you want at least one answer, look at the hand.

For those who haven’t seen it, here’s a description:

DRC file photo/Al Key

Above All Integrity, a bronze sculpture by Aubrey artist George Cadell, was unveiled at Denton’s City Hall East earlier in June.

View larger More photos Photo store

The Aubrey artist’s latest piece is shaped like a traditional monument, almost like an obelisk. Your eye is meant to start from the base, where native people share the landscape with buffalo. As your eye travels up, the scene gets more technological. Cattle, cacti, a log house and a split wooden fence give way to a man breaking the ground with a team of ox. A tractor leads to a truck, the Texas Woman’s University towers lead to a jumble of soaring interstates. The space shuttle — a Texas icon courtesy of NASA — shares a scene with aircraft and missiles.

At the top is an old man. His gaze is fixed on the downtown Denton County Courthouse on the Square. He holds his hat over his heart. His face looks somewhat like that of a Native American.

But it’s the old man’s right hand that can’t be missed. Big and calloused, the hand suggests hard work and prayer. Cadell left the bust of the man hollow. From the sides, you can see sky, branches and the writing on the City Hall entrance.

Wherever your eyes wander as you regard this piece, dare it to keep from going back to that hand. A big hand. A substantive hand.

At the unveiling, Cadell confessed that he studied his own hand to get certain things just so. A vein traverses the back of the hand, a trail that leaves off before the flesh. The nails are short and nothing special. The fingers are long and thick.

This hand looks like another hand on another man who will forever get more glory than this elder farmer, this Native American man whose hair is cut short and whose eyes are tired.

It makes you think of David. Michaelangelo’s David. The hand at David’s side is a work of art to itself, an expression of the miracle of the human body’s architecture and the divine gift that helped David defy Goliath. People who have visited the statue in Italy have said they were enrapt at the sight of David’s hand — the one that isn’t holding the slingshot. It’s a mammoth hand, with short nails, a meaty vein and suggested masculine skill.

Cadell’s old man has a hand like that. It’s not a hand that will be remembered or photographed by legions. It’s a heroic hand, a hand that built the West.

It has calluses. It has tough skin and thick nails. It’s a hand that has purpose. It didn’t fell Goliath, but it did domesticate animals. It did build tractors. It taught teachers and soothed fussy children.

If it’s flash you want, skip the public courtyard outside of the City Hall and click over to YouTube.com. If what you seek is a meditation on integrity, if it’s a reminder that good work means you try and try again, sit beneath the statue. Look at the hand and consider its purpose.

Debate its divine suggestion if you will. What you can’t contest is its importance. 

LUCINDA BREEDING can be reached at 940-566-6877. Her e-mail address is cbreeding@dentonrc.com.