A principle that is true

"All beauty is a making one of opposites, and the making one of opposites is what we are going after in ourselves." - Eli Siegel

This is a painting that has always stirred me tremendously and made me feel more composed or serene at the same time: Vermeer's "Young Woman with a Water Jug"

Serenity and stir, or rest and motion are fundamental opposites in reality, I have learned, that people are hoping to put together. All works of art that are honest--a poem, a Chopin etude, a dance including the best of hip hop, have both energy and repose in a beautiful and deeply satisfying way.

I have seen this principle to be true in my own life and in hundreds of instances of art and life--in the lives of the many women I've taught in Aesthetic Realism consultations for over two decades. We are going after what art has, and that's why it means so much to us.

At the Terrain Gallery's website you can read an important talk about this painting by Julie and Robert Jensen: Vermeer's Young Woman with a Water Jug--or, What Men and Women Are Hoping for in Marriage.

They speak about another pair of opposites that Vermeer puts together so greatly, the domestic and the wide.