Clever gate, but is it highbrow and how so?

Answer: No. The gate is not highbrow. It is not a portal distinguishing one space from another--it is not a "real" gate, as such. If it was a functioning portal, it would be set in a hedge, a wall, or a fence. It would separate one area from another: a promenade from a croquet green, a drive from a house, a garden from a lawn. Lacking function, it is simply a sculpture. The stunning "3-D" effect is quashed in the realization--and this realization is so sudden as to be jarring--that the gate is no gate at all, and the viewer is disappointed to see the optical effect actually leads to nothing but illusion, rather than announcing, as it properly should, excitement and anticipation for the separate space beyond. Indeed, the illusion is not even an illusion reflecting the passage into new spaces, but is a mere freak of design--an arrant academic inscription. Even the delightful variations in the framework are constricted to mere foppish affectation, drawing too much attention, too rapidly, and the allusion we properly seek suggesting latitudinal shifts, "other" spaces and the multiplicity of place and time, are rendered as mere puffs of folly and affectation--distracting, over-done, half-baked, and thus burdensome.