“I chose this particular chrysanthemum because of the uniformity of the top petals and the wild disorder of the bottom petals, and then I shot it head on, trying to get into its meaning as well as I could. I brought this photograph to a lesson the Aesthetic Realism Photographers* had with Eli Siegel.
“Mr. Siegel pointed out that there was a feeling of exaltation here. He said,
‘The effect is of something gorgeous—with that multitudinous white, that opulent white rising above it all. And in the meantime there is a tendency to droop. Tragedy says that a man can be high and yet unfortunate—Hamlet, Oedipus, Othello, Macbeth. This is present in photography, too. I think the flower is not sure of its purpose in this world. Wouldn’t you say it was caught in a storm of uncertainty?’
“I was surprised by these comments, but I felt they were true to my purpose in the photograph and true to my mind as a person with questions and convictions.”
—David Bernstein, from Aesthetic Realism: We Have Been There
*The Aesthetic Realism Photographers, organized in 1963, included professionals, some noted in the field—David Bernstein, Lou Bernstein, Louis Dienes, Ralph Hattersley, Marvin Mondlin, Nancy Starrels. They published important articles and gave talks and classes based on the principles of Aesthetic Realism.