Contrast will always be with us. It clarifies who we are; it helps us to realize the long view. It helps us to make our choices: I want this not that. Contrast is always part of the composition. It is the contrast that bands and drives into the fold similar view points and creates agreement of outlook of what is important and what is not important creating a sense of purpose and time. Of what is fashion and what is not fashion. Of what is style and what is not style. Of what is art and not art. Of beauty and what is not beauty. Most start with what is already accepted and then talk about it from there. To look at everything and wonder about it’s beauty is something else. But surely that is the point. It is all beauty. Gertrude Stein lectures:
“Of course it is beautiful but first all beauty in it is denied and then all the beauty of it is accepted. If every one were not so indolent they would realise that beauty is beauty even when it is irritating and stimulating not only when it is accepted and classic. Of course it is extremely difficult nothing more so than to remember back to its not being beautiful once it has become beautiful. This makes it so much more difficult to realise its beauty when the work is being refused and prevents every one from realising that they were convinced that beauty was denied, once the work is accepted. Automatically with the acceptance of the time-sense comes the recognition of the beauty and once the beauty is accepted the beauty never fails any one. Beginning again and again is a natural thing even when there is a series. Beginning again and again and again explaining composition and time is a natural thing. It is understood by this time that everything is the same except composition and time, composition and the time of the composition and the time in the composition.”
-Desk Sir Edward Maufe, 1925. Mahogany, camphor wood and ebony, gessoed and gillded with white gold; ivory and rock crystal; silk handles.
