Nancy Huntting, Aesthetic Realism consultant, writes:

The basis of “Emphasis, Art, & Ourselves” is some of the greatest seeing in human thought: the seeing by Eli Siegel that “All beauty is a making one of opposites, and the making one of opposites is what we are going after in ourselves.” Two of art’s opposites, and ours, are emphasis and subtlety, or forcefulness and nuance, or advance and retreat. We can really learn from the technique of art about our lives! You’ll feel understood and thrilled as you read about the art of Dickens—and that surprising writer G.K. Chesterton who cared, emphatically, for Dickens’ work. “Emphasis, Art, & Ourselves” is the vital new issue of The Right of Aesthetic Realism to Be Known.

The commentary by Ellen Reiss begins:

Dear Unknown Friends:

Here is the final part of Imagination Has Emphasis, the stirring, deep, sometimes funny, always scholarly, vivid 1971 lecture by Eli Siegel that we have been serializing. Mr. Siegel shows the meaning of emphasis in beauty as it was never shown before. And as he does, the central principle of Aesthetic Realism is there, explaining both art in all its technique and our own largest desire: “All beauty is a making one of opposites, and the making one of opposites is what we are going after in ourselves.”

During our serialization, I have had the pleasure of commenting on this surprising matter, emphasis, in relation to people’s lives and what is happening in the world. I have written about the mistakes people make on the subject. And here I’ll say that the chief mistake arises from (indeed, is practically synonymous with) contempt, that thing which Aesthetic Realism shows to be the source of injustice in every mind. Contempt is “the addition to self through the lessening of something else.” Our contempt, for instance, makes other human beings not matter much: it robs them of that emphasis which is their full aliveness, who they are. It makes their feelings dim, unimportant, lacking the reality of our own. And often in our minds, when we do give certain people emphasis—have them stand out in our thoughts—the basis is: What does this person think of me? How much have I affected him/her?

Contempt Does This Too

There are ever so many fake ways contempt has of emphasizing and de-emphasizing. A classic is: spotting a flaw in something and making that flaw stand out and annul all the good that may be around it. A slight tear in a rose petal becomes more important than the whole delicate, strong, rich, lovely rose. As these TROs have been describing, all the ways of contempt are completely opposed to the way emphasis and dimming take place in true art….Read more