What Is Beauty? Enhance Your Art with Unity, Contrast and Harmony
Recently I was asked to speak at an event at the Sedona Arts Center, and I created a digital presentation to share some simple but I think fairly profound insights I had a few years ago about three fundamental processes behind all art forms.... and behind life itself.
What Is Beauty? Enhance Your Art with Unity, Contrast and Harmony," is now posted on YouTube as an hour-long voyage through many artistic styles and media, both classic and contemporary. There's nothing like seeing visual examples. When I was learning to paint, I found it very helpful to have teachers present slide shows that would really show us just how great painters draw us in to the spirit of beauty, as in, "See, here's where they placed orange right next to its opposite, blue, and it really draws your eye."
These insights flooded into my mind a few years ago when an artist asked me a simple question:
"What makes Sedona so beautiful?" A few days later I penned a 30 page article, "Awaken to Beauty," showing how three simple processes are at the core of life and therefore at the core of all artistic endeavors.
Though the one question triggered the flood, all this had been building for years, based on a wide variety of art education, spiritual interests, and just a lifetime of living on planet Earth.
I hope you will find it stimulating and helpful, whether you are an artist, or just a curious person who likes to see the big picture!
Enjoy.
"Rainy Sesaon in the Tropics," by Frederick Church"- the Unity Principle expressed as Light.
"The Casual Vendor," by Libby Caldwell, the Unity principle expressed as meditative observation.
Edward Hopper: a master of contrasts:
