WHAT IS A BEAUTIFUL EMOTION?

This article by Dennis Clerkin appeared in the San Antonio Register Newspaper, TX

I began to learn in my study of Aesthetic Realism that what makes an emotion beautiful is the same as what makes a work of art beautiful—they both must be fair to the aesthetic structure of the world.  “All beauty,” Eli Siegel, founder of Aesthetic Realism stated, “is a making one of opposites, and the making one of opposites is what we are going after in ourselves.”  I love Eli Siegel for giving this knowledge to the world, making it possible for me and for every person to have a life of dignity and self-respect.

A photograph that has moved America since it was first taken, and that I love, is “Chief Petty Officer Graham Jackson Playing Going Home.”  It was taken by Edward Clark on April 13, 1945, the day after the death of FDR, as his casket was being taken to the train.  On assignment for Life Magazine, Edward Clark was looking, as the caption under the photograph states, for a picture that symbolized the nation’s sorrow.  I believe that the reason so many Americans have felt that this picture represented them is explained in these mighty, true sentences by Eli Siegel from his preface to the book, Personal and Impersonal: Six Aesthetic Realists:

"What distinguishes a poetic emotion or, generally, an art emotion from the ordinary kind is that while a poetic emotion is personal and impersonal at once, the customary kind can be seen as just personal."

This photograph stirs us because Edward Clark, in presenting one man’s emotion, has shown that the impersonal structure of reality is here too – the oneness of opposites.

All my life I desperately wanted to be able let go and show spontaneously what I felt, but I felt if I showed any emotion at all I would look undignified and weak.  On my job, co-workers would say things like “Boy, Dennis, you never get ruffled,” and I always took this as a compliment.  What I considered a great ability – hiding my emotions and showing how little things meant to me—was really a terrible defeat.  I am so grateful to have learned from Aesthetic Realism that the reason I often felt so empty and alone was because I had contempt, described by Eli Siegel as the “disposition in every person to think he will be for himself by making less of the outside world.”

I saw as I studied this photograph that the reason we feel Graham Jackson’s emotion is beautiful is because the photograph puts together opposites technically: the vertical and horizontal, expansion and contraction, dark and light.  Clark positioned himself so that Graham Jackson is prominent in the foreground, showing a wide sweep to his body from his elbow on his left, to his hand on the right, while at the same time going vertically from top to bottom within the picture frame.  Graham Jackson’s individuality is accented by the bright vertical column behind him.  He stands upright and proud, as tears stream down his face, his eyes are contracted in grief, yet see how they look out.  We follow his gaze upward and out across the photograph, a gaze that seems unending.  In his face we see grief and love for a president who Eli Siegel described in his poem “Litany of Presidents, Mostly Unfortunate” this way:

"Among the fortunate is Franklin Delano Roosevelt, because there was an impulsion in him to find out what people really hoped for..."

In his historic 15 Questions, “Is Beauty the Making One of Opposites?” Eli Siegel asks this question about Impersonal and Personal:

"Does every instance of art and beauty contain something that stands for the meaning of all that is, all that is true in an outside way, reality just so?—and does every instance of art and beauty also contain something which stands for the individual mind, a self which has been moved, a person seeing as original person?"

In this photograph, I believe that Edward Clark shows that Graham Jackson, in his sorrow, is related to the world, and “stands for the meaning of all that is, all that is true in an outside way, reality just so."  See how his forearm merges with the bottom of the picture frame and the horizontal keys of the accordion.  The vertical bellows of his accordion expand, touching the shoulder of a woman who, of all the persons in this picture is the most contracted –her face hidden and head bowed.  And on the far left, another woman looks out from behind the pillar in an inquiring and somewhat suspicious way.  These women are very different from Jackson, yet the patterns on their dresses are related to the rich and lively design in the center panel of Jackson’s accordion.

Clark waited for the moment when the accordion was expanded, and Jackson was looking up.  That accordion, held close to Jackson’s body is surprising because it is such a lively instrument, not usually associated with death.  It is a oneness of contraction and expansion and it has us feel the emotion of Graham Jackson is one that is both personal and wide.  As he is moved, his fingers go up and down the keyboard and have to be exact about what is not himself—the world of horizontal and vertical, expansion and contraction, opposites central in the instrument that is a means of expressing himself.

In an Aesthetic Realism consultation that helped to change my life, my consultants asked me these kind questions:  “Is it shameful to show emotions?  If you get close to being moved to tears would you hold it back?” “Yes,” I answered.  “Is it the purpose of life to be safe, or to have as large and beautiful emotions as possible?”  It means more to me than I can say that I feel more with each day that it is a victory and not a defeat to show that the world means something to me and I am glad to be affected by it.  I am one of the most fortunate men in America to be studying Aesthetic Realism and have my emotions about the world grow larger as I learn to see it as a oneness opposites.

One of the reasons I love to photograph is because it is a means of making permanent the emotions I have about the world.  Through studying the opposites, my life has an integrity and self-respect I never had before.

Why is it that as we look at this photograph of a man crying, we feel pleasure and greater respect for humanity?  I think these beautiful sentences from Afternoon Regard for Photography by Eli Siegel describe something central in this photograph and in every person: 

“We are trying to put our sadness and our triumph together…the purpose is to tell us that our sadness about the world and our being pleased with the world may come from the same source which would be very much against depression as knocking one out completely.”

We have in this photograph that beautiful oneness of sadness and triumph. As tears fall from Graham Jackson's eyes, his dark face is uplifted and radiant with light.  His body and the accordion he holds form an energetic triangle.  Its apex is the bright anchor on his cap—one side is formed by the lively tilt of his cap, and his shoulder and arm on the left.  The other is formed by the bright brass tips of the accordion bellows on the right, which are continued by the diagonal arm of the woman, seated directly to his right.  His accordion is a thrilling relation of horizontal keys that alternate playfully in light and dark.  In the middle of the accordion is a swirling design of bright leaves.  When people are sad they most often withdraw from the world--see it as dark, dull and lifeless.  They don't want to see the world is also lively, has lightness, but to take meaning out of the world to feel important.  This is contempt and completely opposed to what an artist does.  An artist sees the world aesthetically, as a oneness of opposites.  In photographing Graham Jackson in his grief with that radiant light on his face and his head up, Edward Clark is against that dullness.  Waiting for this moment was crucial.  If Graham Jackson was looking forward we would not have that beautiful relation of rising and falling, dark and light which stirs us so much.  I was very moved to see this relation of light and dark in the accordion, in his face, and then to think that Graham Jackson is an African American having a large emotion about a president who is white and stood for justice to people.

Unlike the heartfelt sadness shown by Graham Jackson in the photograph, people have wanted to manufacture sadness.  One of the most important things I learned from Aesthetic Realism is that we can arrange to be hurt by the world so we can feel important and justified in dismissing the whole world.  I remember going into my basement in Brooklyn and playing records like "You Lost That Lovin' Feeling" and “The Worst That Could Happen" and feeling I was the saddest person in the world.  I relished the feeling that I was hurt and disappointed by everyone, and felt that I was too deep to be understood by other people.  Getting importance this way had me feel lonelier than before.

I have such large gratitude to Eli Siegel and Aesthetic Realism for making it possible for the deepest emotion that people have, to be seen in the sunlight.  I get "ruffled" now on behalf of the world because I have a growing passion about what all people deserve, which includes economics, politics and education.  My hope to be swept by something has been met by Eli Siegel and Aesthetic Realism and my love and gratitude to them is the emotion that I am proudest of in my life.  Through studying Aesthetic Realism I know all people can have the emotions—the lives—they are hoping for.