Does this photograph of Magnolia blossoms have anything to do with us—and with our feelings?
In the journal TRO*, editor Ellen Reiss wrote: “Every person’s spirits…droop and rise. The lowness and height of the world, its heaviness and lightness, are in everyone.”
This photograph has a beautiful relation of sinking and rising. As the branch dips down, the blossoms turn and rise up with thrilling vigor, their delicate pink and white petals energetically swelling out. The highest blossom droops a little—flowers, too, have vicissitudes.
As I studied Aesthetic Realism, I began to see I was related to everything through the opposites. What a thrilling counter to the contempt that once made me both aloof and a dismal droop. I learned that the way of seeing the world we hope for is in art, and this photo is a moving example.
—Nancy Huntting
*The Rightness of Aesthetic Realism: A Periodical (TRO)