Go to Aesthetic Realism Podcasts Hear a talk—vibrant, thought-
provoking, immediately practical—
by Aesthetic Realism associate & actress Carol McCluer.more
Aesthetic Realism Consultations In consultations, a person’s individual life questions are understood and explained, through the principles of Aesthetic Realism....more
Pioneering dramatic and musical presentations take place at the Foundation, and elsewhere as part of the Foundation's Outreach Program. These productions—a new dramatic form with performance and comment—include "Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream; or, Earthy Whirl," by Eli Siegel; "Rock 'n' Roll, the Opposites, & Our Greatest Hopes!"; "Ibsen, Bach, & What Interferes with Love"' and more.
Sunday, February 12, 2:30 PM
Celebrating the 200th anniversary
of the birth of Charles Dickens,
the Aesthetic Realism Theatre Company presents—
How Should a Person Be Seen?
or, Charles Dickens'Hard Times
A dramatic enactment of Eli Siegel’s great lecture,
with scenes from the novel; & songs—
about labor, learning, & the human heart
Here is the second section of the 1970 lecture New York Begins Poetically, by Eli Siegel. In it Mr. Siegel comments, chronologically, on particular aspects of New York City—sometimes historical events, sometimes instances of literature, not necessarily the most noted. Through these he presents New York as no one did before: we feel New York as a oneness of opposites. And, Aesthetic Realism explains, opposites as one is what poetry has, what all art and beauty have....
As Mr. Siegel talks about New York—with leisureliness, depth, and his richness of knowledge—he shows the city to be a tremendous relation of continuity and point, relation and individuality. It is New York, the same continuing city, through all the days, months, centuries; and yet how particular Peter Stuyvesant is, and the emotion of Leisler is, and the feeling and thought of Jonathan Edwards.
These opposites are an emergency for everyone. That’s because people have, with horrible everyday wrongness, felt the way to be an individual is not to see oneself as continuous with other people, connected with them, related to them. They’ve felt the way to be an individual is to see oneself as apart and superior. That feeling is contempt. And, Aesthetic Realism explains, from contempt come the loneliness, emptiness, shame, also cruelty, of people.
Seeing New York as at once richly continuous and grandly particular is a means of feeling what we need urgently to feel: that we are individual through our relation to the world and millions of other people—not through our ability to beat them out, look down on them, put them aside. more
These feature dramatic readings of some of the great lectures on literature, ethics, economics, history, everyday life, and art given by Eli Siegel. There are reenactments of Aesthetic Realism lessons he taught, upon which Aesthetic Realism consultations today are based. And there are groundbreaking talks by artists and scholars in many fields—including jazz, architecture, photography, film—on this new way of seeing the arts, sciences, and reality itself.
Saturday, February 18, 8 PM
Painting, Music, & Our Lives!
Celebrating the 57th Anniversary
of the Terrain Gallery
•Aesthetic Realism & Hieronymus Bosch
by Eli Siegel
"When the painter Bosch took very disgusting, fearful things and related them to things that are more beautiful, it came from a desire to like the world.”
On the first Thursday of every month the Aesthetic Realism Consultants and Associates present public seminars. Representative subjects include: “Real Communication in Marriage—How Can We Have It?”; “What's the Difference between Wowing People & Liking Yourself?”; “Kindness: Is It Strong ?”; “The Aesthetic Realism Teaching Method Succeeds: Knowledge Wins, Prejudice Loses!”
Thursday, March 1, 6:30 PM
Acquisition vs. Understanding: The Big Debate in Every Man
Speakers: Jefferey Carduner, Ernest DeFilippis, Ken Kimmelman
Realismo Estético
The purpose of the not-for-profit Aesthetic Realism Foundation
