This doorway is a work of art called "Typanum". It is on the Smithsonian's Inventory (
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"A tympanum in relief is installed over a set of double doors within an arched niche. The central element is the Coat of Arms for the City of Santa Barbara. On the left stands Aristotle, representing Science and History, wearing a green toga, red cloak and long gray beard. Plato, representing Philosophy and Literature, stands on the right wearing a blue and red toga with a green and white drape. Both figures holds books. Shields for four famous European libraries are installed along the top. Decorative elements include scrollwork and bunches of fruit."
NOTE: THE SMITHSONIAN INVENTORY IS INACCURATE... PLATO IS THE FIGURE ON THE LEFT AND ARISTOTLE IS THE FIGURE ON THE RIGHT. Each figure is labeled and the figure on the left is clearly labeled Plato in the Greek alphabet.
The sculptures of Plato and Aristotle are about 3 feet tall.
A plaque at the site reads:
"TYMPANUM
THE WOOD CARVING ABOVE WAS DESIGNED BY CARLETON M.
WINSLOW AND EXECUTED BY MARSHALL LAIRD. AT THE
CENTER IS THE COAT-OF-ARMS OF THE CITY. ON EITHER
SIDE ARE FIGURES OF PLATO AND ARISTOTLE. SURROUNDING
THE CENTER ARE THE SHIELDS OF FOUR FAMOUS
LIBRARIES; FROM THE LEFT, THE UNIVERSITY OF BOLOGNA,
THE BIBLIOTHEQUE NATIONALE IN PARIS, THE UNIVERSITY
OF SALAMANCA AND THE BODLEIAN LIBRARY AT OXFORD UNIVERSITY"
As for Aristotle, Wikipedia (
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"Aristotle (Ancient Greek: ???st?t???? [aristotél??s], Aristotéles) (384 BC – 322 BC) was a Greek philosopher and polymath, a student of Plato and teacher of Alexander the Great. His writings cover many subjects, including physics, metaphysics, poetry, theater, music, logic, rhetoric, linguistics, politics, government, ethics, biology, and zoology. Together with Plato and Socrates (Plato's teacher), Aristotle is one of the most important founding figures in Western philosophy. Aristotle's writings were the first to create a comprehensive system of Western philosophy, encompassing ethics, aesthetics, logic, science, politics, and metaphysics.
Aristotle's views on the physical sciences profoundly shaped medieval scholarship, and their influence extended well into the Renaissance, although they were ultimately replaced by Newtonian physics. In the zoological sciences, some of his observations were confirmed to be accurate only in the 19th century. His works contain the earliest known formal study of logic, which was incorporated in the late 19th century into modern formal logic.
In metaphysics, Aristotelianism had a profound influence on philosophical and theological thinking in the Islamic and Jewish traditions in the Middle Ages, and it continues to influence Christian theology, especially the scholastic tradition of the Catholic Church. Aristotle was well known among medieval Muslim intellectuals and revered as '?????? ?????' – "The First Teacher".
His ethics, though always influential, gained renewed interest with the modern advent of virtue ethics. All aspects of Aristotle's philosophy continue to be the object of active academic study today. Though Aristotle wrote many elegant treatises and dialogues (Cicero described his literary style as "a river of gold"), it is thought that the majority of his writings are now lost and only about one-third of the original works have survived."