Last week I stopped by Jamaica Bay Wildlife Refuge on my way to JFK airport to pick up my wife. The sun was sinking below the horizon and the views were breathtaking.
I thought of Eli Siegel's landmark essay, "Is Beauty the Making One of Opposites?" and specifically his question #13 (there are fifteen questions) about Light and Dark:
Does all art present the world as visible, luminous, going forth?—does art, too, present the world as dark, hidden, having a meaning which seems to be beyond ordinary perception?—and is the technical problem of light and dark in painting related to the reality question of the luminous and hidden?
I say Yes! three times!
I find it thrilling when a large emotion I have about something I see as beautiful is ratified by the intellectual and logical explanation of why it is beautiful. This is something I never experienced clearly before studying Aesthetic Realism, and it is a big reason why I am so grateful for my study.
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