Springtime encourages fresh looking, new imaginings, and get-up-and-go in the great outdoors. So it is that Cincinnati Art Museum’s current Cycle Thru! The Art of the Bike exhibition is a perfect fit for spring’s serendipity.

Bikes are not just a useful invention for transport and recreation. They are constantly reimagined and redesigned in practical and artful ways, serving all sorts of human interests.

What’s artful about bikes?

Why not start with earliest memories of riding a bike or watching a child or grandchild on a first launch? A shiny new bike, a flat driveway, a parental hand letting go, a wobbly start, finding your balance, a tentative push on the pedals—off you go, on your own, you did it! For generations of kids (of all ages) there’s a first thrill of self-propelled freedom. And just when the little freedom rider thinks a bike is all about that, we get the skinned-knee lesson about balance. And brakes. And being alert to our surroundings. So, bikes are more than mechanical objects. They carry not only the physical body but also memories, teachable moments, experiences individual and collective, and yes even metaphors. Albert Einstein—who knew a thing or two about life, imagination, and physics—said, "Life is like riding a bicycle. To keep your balance, you must keep moving."

One of the best insights about art and design is the principle (succinctly stated by American architect Louis Sullivan) that "form ever follows function." Whether it be a building, pencil, phone, or bike, people tend to like things whose designs fit aesthetically with their useful purpose. You like this or that phone not only because it works well but also because you like its look and feel.

A bike’s form follows its function. This is its art. Inventions succeed or fail over time depending on how well they marry form with function. This is not an either/or choice between aesthetics and utility. It’s both/and. Steve Jobs understood that engineering alone wouldn’t revolutionize the personal computer; it would need artful form with color, shape, fonts, images. It would need to be "personal," not just "computer." This spring don’t miss Cycle Thru! at your Cincinnati Art Museum!