Aesthetic Realism: A New Understanding of Art and Life / Lynette Abel

Here I write about what I have learned from Aesthetic Realism, the education founded by the American philosopher, poet, and scholar
Eli Siegel.

In articles, and in papers presented to the public, I have written about personal and national concerns, and their relation, based on what I have learned.  And here, too, are important articles written by friends and colleagues explaining issues affecting America and the world today.

I live in New York City and love it here. When I was 23, I began to study the education I write of on this website.  For instance, how a person is related to everything else—and the place of art in understanding this—is outlined in the principle "The world, art, and self explain each other: each is the aesthetic oneness of opposites."

For more about this, see the Aesthetic Realism Foundation Online Library and biographical information about Eli Siegel. A current schedule of seminar classes can be found on the Foundation's Calendar. And information about how to audit particular classes is available too.

It was the greatest pleasure and richest life experience to have attended Aesthetic Realism classes given by Mr. Siegel in the years from 1973 to 1978. Included here are selected reports I gave of some of those classes of scholarly, humorous, moving talks he gave on a wide diversity of subjects—on literature, music, the social sciences, national ethics, economics, the human self, and so much more. 

Today, my education continues in professional classes taught each week by Aesthetic Realism Chair of Education, Ellen Reiss, whom I love and respect for her honesty, scholarship, and great kindness.

_________________________________


Newly
published on the Aesthetic Realism
Foundation's Online Library is:

                           Definitions, and Comment:

                         Being a Description of the World

                                          By Eli Siegel

_________________________________


On the 60th anniversary of the Beatles arrival in the USA,
I'm proud to feature this paper on their great, iconic song,
"I Saw Her Standing There."

_________________________________

I recently read this issue of The Right of Aesthetic Realism to Be Known, with a commentary by Chair of Education, Ellen Reiss. While it was written some years ago, it has tremendous meaning and relevance today! It is about the honest, beautiful ethics upon which America stands. She writes:

Dear Unknown Friends:

What it means to love America, really to love America, is an urgent matter. I have written on it recently and continue to, because Aesthetic Realism explains that love for country is a matter of ethics and aesthetics—in keeping with this Aesthetic Realism principle: “All beauty is a making one of opposites, and the making one of opposites is what we are going after in ourselves.” The great 1968 lecture we are serializing has that principle at its basis. In It and Self, Eli Siegel shows what no one before him saw: the central likeness between art and science. Both, he shows, put opposites together. Chiefly, both art and science are a oneness of a self and an it—of a person expressing what he or she is by being fair to an instance of the outside world.

We need to give to America the justice which both science and art give. And so I am going to comment on a statement which has been felt to stand for American patriotism: the Pledge of Allegiance, recited in the classrooms of the land and at other gatherings of Americans. I am not discussing the controversies around the Pledge, though they are important: There is the question of whether it should indeed be a school fixture, with every child compelled to proclaim his or her loyalty each day. There is the phrase “under God,” inserted during the McCarthy era—in violation, many believe, of the First Amendment and of the separation between religion and state so crucial to American democracy. What I look at here are the words of the Pledge, because doing so provides a chance to ask how we should see our nation.

Her commentary continues here.

And, I'm glad to refer you to a moving, important paper about the life of the American abolitionist and activist, Sojourner Truth by Aesthetic Realism consultant and poet, Karen Van Outryve. You can read it here.

Chaim & Dorothy Koppelman Foundation

This website is great in terms of art and culture. It contains prints, paintings, and writings of these important 20th century artists, Chaim & Dorothy Koppelman. As I read what they wrote about the Aesthetic Realism of Eli Siegel, I was stirred to my depths by the honesty, beauty, and originality of their expression. See it here.

 Aesthetic Realism Theatre Company

From "Rock 'n' Roll, the Opposites, & Our Greatest Hopes—A Celebration!" and Other Musical and Educational Events

Kevin Fennellone of the best rock 'n' roll writers and critics today has written about Stevie Wonder's great "Fingertips, Part II." It's such an exciting paper, with musical examples throughout.  In it, Mr. Fennell shows powerfully, through his Aesthetic Realism education, how art and life are in a dynamic, inextricable relation. "Anyone Who Had a Heart" by Burt Bachrach and Hal David, is sung by Carrie Wilson. I'm proud to be one of the backup singers, along with Meryl Nietsch-Cooperman, & Ann Richards.

It was a tremendous experience to study and see how the intimate and the wide are in the Beatles' great song "I Saw Her Standing There," originally presented as part of an Aesthetic Realism Music seminar.

To hear "Carol of the Drum" or "Little Drummer Boy" by Harry Simeone, Katherine K. Davis, and Henry Onorati, performed December 2011 by the Aesthetic Realism Theatre Company as part of the Special Event "The Beauty and Urgency of Justice," click here.

A wonderful seminar paper by my colleague, Leila Rosen, is on this very important subject: What in a Woman Herself, Interferes with Love? from an Aesthetic Realism seminar, with a discussion of Neil Simon's 1977 film The Goodbye Girl.

I love this paper by Michael Palmer, retired sportswriter, Aesthetic Realism associate, and my husband, titled "When Is a Fight Beautiful?, or George Bellows' Dempsey & Firpo." He first presented it at the Aesthetic Realism Foundation, and you can see it on video here.

Selected Reports of Lectures Given by Eli Siegel

     "Freedom Is with Imagination" by Paul Abel

    "Instinct and Mme de Sevigne

    "People Leave Each Other in Poetry"

    "Freedom and Order in Poetry" 

    "It Is, As It's Elsewhere

    The Miracle at Verdun, a play by Hans Chlumberg, discussed
    by Eli Siegel


     "Words Are Everywhere: Comedy and Tragedy Are Two of These" 

    "Presence and Absence: A Consideration of the Arts and Sciences"

Aesthetic Realism Seminars

Ornament for L. Abel The Fight between Boredom and Awareness in a Woman's Mind
     Discusses the life & work of Frances Perkins, Secretary
of Labor
    
in FDR's administration.
        
Page 1 Page 2 Page 3 

Ornament
                                  for L. Abel What's the Biggest Thing Women Need to Know about Power?
     Discusses the 19th century novel, Emma by Jane Austen 

      
Page 1 Page 2 Page 3 

Ornament
                                  for L. Abel What's More Important: to Appreciate Rightly or Be Praised?
     Discusses the film The Sound of Music

      
Page 1 Page 2 Page 3 

Ornament
                                  for L. Abel Beauty and the Beast; or, the Ethics of a Fairy Tale   

Ornament
                                  for L. Abel Despite Achievement & Praise—Why Can a Woman Feel Empty?
     Discuss
es portions of Anne of Green Gables by L.M. Montgomery 
      
Page 1 Page 2 Page 3 

Ornament
                                  for L. Abel Kindness is Criticism  Includes commentary on Jane Addams 

Ornament
                                  for L. Abel The Inability to Appreciate—What Does it Come From? Discusses
     the short story "The Garden Party" by Katherine Mansfield
 

      
Page 1 Page 2 Page 3 

Ornament
                                  for L. Abel A Woman's Dissatisfaction: Can It Be Beautiful?
     Commentary on the character Beatrice from William Makepeace

     Thackeray's Henry Esmond   
Page 1 Page 2 Page 3 

Ornament
                                  for L. Abel  In Trying to Be Important, What Mistakes Do People Make?
      Discusses aspects of the novel Framley Parsonage,
by
      Anthony Trollope
 
Page 1 Page 2 Page 3 

Ornament
                                  for L. Abel  Woman's Determination: What Makes It Right or Wrong?
       
Page 1 Page 2 | Page 3 

Ornament
                                  for L. Abel  Why Are Women Disappointed--& Do They Ever Want to Be?
  
  With some comment on the 1913 novel Pollyanna by Eleanor
     H. Porter
 
Page 1 Page 2 Page 3

Ornament for L. Abel  The Intimate & Wide in the Beatles' "I Saw Her Standing There"

I love this important essay, The Ordinary Doom, in which
Eli Siegel explains two large matters: 1. Why people feel unexpressed and, 2. Why people feel not understood.




Special Presentations of Aesthetic Realism

"Power & Grace in Music, with a Note on Sincerity" from a
Music: Aesthetic Realism
presentation of October 26, 1975
given by
Paul Abel 
 
Page 1 Page 2

In 1946, Paul Abel began his career as an airline pilot. Several years later in 1949, Mr. Abel received his Master's degree in Music at Syracuse University, where he was on the faculty and taught voice. Then in 1969, he began to study Aesthetic Realism in New York City in classes with Eli Siegel. In 1975 he taught voice, using the Aesthetic Realism point of view. This is the point of view of the essay presented here. What Mr. Abel sees about Verdi's Rigoletto, I believe, adds importantly to its beauty and value. --Editor


Other Aesthetic Realism Resources

The Aesthetic Realism Teaching Method 
The Aesthetic Realism Theatre Company
Eli Siegel, founder of Aesthetic Realism: A Biography
Friends of Aesthetic Realism—Countering the Lies
Michael Palmer, writer on life and sports

The Aesthetic Realism Online Library
Reverend Wayne Plumstead's Blog: The World Now—& You
Len Bernstein, Photography Education
The Terrain Gallery / Aesthetic Realism Foundation
Aesthetic Realism: A New Perspective for Anthropology & Sociology
Alice Bernstein, writer, Aesthetic Realism Associate
Ellen Reiss, Aesthetic Realism Chair of Education
About Eli Siegel
Eli Siegel's 'Is Beauty the Making One of Opposites?'
Self and World: An Explanation of Aesthetic Realism
Anne Fielding, Actor, Director of the Aesthetic Realism Theatre Co.
Ruth Oron, Essayist, Aesthetic Realism Associate
Nancy Huntting, Aesthetic Realism Consultant
Kevin Fennell, writer, singer with the Aesthetic Realism Theatre Co.
Leila Rosen, HS English Educator, Aesthetic Realism Associate
Alan Shapiro, jazz musician, Aesthetic Realism Associate
Lynette Abel's presentation of "Sargent's Madame X; or, Assertion & Retreat in Woman" on YouTube
Amy and Louis Dienes, Photography
Chaim and Dorothy Koppelman, artists
Donita Ellison, Art Educator, Aesthetic Realism Associate
Edward Green, composer, musicologist, Aesthetic Realism Associate

Ornament
                              for L. AbelHOMEbulletSITEMAPbulletSEMINARSbulletREPORTSbulletARTICLESbulletARTbulletLINKS bulletRESOURCES

Background image: Claude Monet, "Cliff near Pourville"

Lynette Abel


Articles



Reports

Art

Seminars

Resources

Sitemap

Links

About
Lynette Abel

Photos

Twitter of LAFacebook of
                                              LA,