The Aesthetic Realism Foundation is the not-for-profit educational foundation that teaches the philosophy founded in 1941 by Eli Siegel, American educator, poet, critic. The Aesthetic Realism Chair of Education is Ellen Reiss. You can visit our website by clicking here or on any of the following links:

Recent issues of

The Right of Aesthetic Realism to Be Known:

NUMBER 2146.—October 9, 2024

Criticism—of Life & Literature

NUMBER 2145.—September 25, 2024

Authentic Criticism

NUMBER 2144.—September 11, 2024

What Value Is—in Art and Life

NUMBER 2143.—August 28, 2024

Two Huge Things: Poetry & Love

and

NUMBER 2034.—June 24, 2020

Like of the World versus Racism

Published in the summer of 2020, a crucial time in history, this issue explains three hugely important things: 1) the cause of all prejudice and racism; 2) the state of mind we need to have as we think about other people if we’re going to be just to them—including, very much, people who look different from us; 3) how the way of seeing in all true art is utterly opposed to racism. The means by which people’s minds and feelings can really change from prejudice to justice is in this issue. You can read it here.

Site Maps for Websites about Aesthetic Realism

What People Who Study Aesthetic Realism Are Saying

Architecture & New York City

Aesthetic Realism Looks at New York City. John Stern writes: “As a historian with a lifelong care for the metropolis, I’m glad to welcome you to “Aesthetic Realism Looks at New York City: Landmarks, Poetry, Painting, History, Photography.” This website looks at the great city, whose beauty is explained by Aesthetic Realism, the philosophy founded by Eli Siegel (1902-1978), the noted American poet and educator who stated: “All beauty is a making one of opposites, and the making one of opposites is what we are going after in ourselves.”

Every city, like every person, is a unique relation of opposites. The way hardness and softness, past and present, sameness and difference, rest and motion, vertical and horizontal come together in New York is what makes this city great. >> Read more

Acting

The Aesthetic Realism Theatre Company in New York City. The Aesthetic Realism Theatre Company’s productions are an exciting new dramatic form. Many performances are based on landmark talks given by Eli Siegel on plays from world theatre—by Shakespeare, Molière, Sheridan, Ibsen, Strindberg, Eugene O’Neill, George Kelly, Susan Glaspell—and others. We also present Mr. Siegel’s critical discussions of some of the great novels of all time, with scenes enacted—from Jane Eyre, Huckleberry Finn, Père Goriot, and Hard Times, to name a few.

Bennett Cooperman, consultant, actor and singer with the Company, says: “I love the new way of seeing drama and acting that is in Aesthetic Realism. You can find out more in the important essay, ‘I Believe this about Acting,’ by Anne Fielding, Director Emeritus of the Aesthetic Realism Theatre Company. And you can read about the lives and artistry of noted actors in history, including Edwin Booth, Edwin Forrest and George M. Cohan, on the website I share with my wife, consultant Meryl Nietsch-Cooperman, who is also part of the theatre company.”

Art (a sampling)

Aesthetic Realism and Picasso’s GUERNICA: For Life “Pablo Picasso in his angry yet monumental memorial to Guernica opposes cruelty and affirms life—doesn’t say reality is senseless.” —Dorothy Koppelman

GERRIT RIETVELD’S RED AND BLUE CHAIR & What I Learned about Rest and Motion in Myself by Anthony Romeo, Architect (AIA). “In 1918, the architect Gerrit Thomas Rietveld designed a chair that affected not only furniture design, but the history of architecture. Rietveld’s ‘Red and Blue’ chair is now in the collection of the Museum of Modern Art, and it is a chair I love.” Mr. Romeo quotes from Eli Siegel’s Is Beauty the Making One of Opposites?, a class taught by Ellen Reiss, the Aesthetic Realism Chair of Education, Gerrit Rietveld, and other sources.

Anthropology

On the Place of Eli Siegel in Anthropological Thought Excerpt #1 from Columbia University doctoral thesis in anthropology by Arnold Perey, Ph.D., based on Aesthetic Realism. In “A New Perspective for Anthropology” Dr. Perey writes: “Through the Aesthetic Realism method we can learn about ourselves from anthropology. There is not a person in Africa, Asia, the Americas, Europe, or the Pacific, who cannot teach us about the deepest feelings in ourselves…”

Film and Video

The Heart Knows Better. A Film by Ken Kimmelman This Emmy award-winning anti-prejudice public service announcement by Ken Kimmelman illustrates, in powerful images, that people of different backgrounds are more alike than we may see. The film arose from Mr. Kimmelman’s study of Aesthetic Realism. Imagery Film, Ltd. is the film company directed by Mr. Kimmelman, an Aesthetic Realism consultant, in New York City.

United Nations AFF 99: What Does a Person Deserve? “What Does a Person Deserve?” Director: Ken Kimmelman. Description: A film that asks this question, first posed by Eli Siegel, in relation to homelessness and hunger in the United States today: “What does a person deserve by being alive?”

Aesthetic Realism Theatre Company videos Performances of songs from some of the great presentations this renowned Theatre Company has given across the US. Featured are: “The Banana Boat Song” and “Unfair” from “‘Ethics Is a Force’—Songs about Labor;” “Breakeven” and “Anyone Who Had a Heart” from “Rock ‘n’ Roll, the Opposites, & Our Greatest Hopes,” and “The Wearin’ of the Green” from “Humanity’s Opposites: Beginning with Ireland.”

Housing & Homelessness / Architecture

Housing: A Basic Human Right This site announces a groundbreaking presentation by a filmmaker, a city planner, and two architects who speak—with statistics and great feeling—about the housing crisis in America and what they have seen through their study of Aesthetic Realism about its cause and solution.

Honesty

Friends of Aesthetic Realism—Countering the Lies The purpose of this website is to counter lies about Aesthetic Realism, which have been put forth on the Internet by a few individuals. — “It’s a lie, and not a well told one at that. It grins out like a copper dollar.” —Abraham Lincoln

Music

Barbara Allen, flutist, teacher, Aesthetic Realism Consultant “The philosophy of Aesthetic Realism, which I am so proud to teach, has educated me about the most important things a person can know—including about Music, Education, Love and Marriage.” —Barbara Allen

See “Aesthetic Realism and the Art of the Flute,” an Interview with Barbara Allen in Conversation with Edward Green, PhD. (Published in the Hellenic Journal of Music, Education and Art. Vol. 6, Article 4)

Edward Green, prize-winning composer, teacher of piano and composition, professor at Manhattan School of Music and on the Aesthetic Realism Foundation faculty.

Alan Shapiro, jazz pianist and music educator. Includes articles on works by Duke Ellington, Louis Armstrong, Richard Wagner, and Antonio Vivaldi.

Watch “Roughness and Sweetness in Louis Armstrong’s ‘I Can’t Give You Anything but Love'” by Alan Shapiro

Haroldo Mauro Jr. – [in English] The accomplished Brazilian pianist, arranger, composer and teacher Haroldo Mauro, Jr.

Haroldo Mauro Jr. – [em Português] Pianista/compositor—Formação acadêmica: Aesthetic Realism Foundation – Nova York, EUA (1986-1989) Estudos em educação e estética.

Photography

Len Bernstein —Photography Photography education using the philosophy of Aesthetic Realism as its critical basis.

David M. Bernstein, Fine Art Photography Portfolio and articles by this noted photographer and his colleagues. “I want people to have the thrill and honor of learning, as I so happily do, how the questions of our lives are solved in art; how opposites such as immediate and permanent, logic and emotion, dark and light are crucial in a photograph, and that we can learn from art how to have these opposites truly composed in ourselves.” —David M. Bernstein Email: davidmbernstein@mindspring.com

Amy and Louis Dienes, Photographers and Aesthetic Realism Associates Portfolios of photographs; accounts of Aesthetic Realism classes; Gallery Talks; News; and Poem: Black and White, with a selection of photographs which inspired the lines. Louis and Amy Dienes studied in classes with Eli Siegel and now with Ellen Reiss.

Dan McClung “When I am inspired to photograph something it is always, I have learned, the opposites of reality in a particular relation, at a particular moment, that have taken me; this very much includes people. My study of Aesthetic Realism and Eli Siegel’s statement that “all beauty is the making one of opposites,” have enabled me—as I frame a subject in the viewfinder, deciding what to omit or include, how close to get, or what angle may be best—to be consciously aware of the opposites in what I see; how closeness and distance are in a landscape, how the mysterious can be shown in an ordinary object, or how light and shadow reveal emotion in a face.

News, Articles, & Essays

Lynette Abel Articles and essays, particularly published in New York State—including “World should be owned by people living in it,” The Record, Troy, NY, April 9, 2001.

Alice Bernstein and Friends Articles on the economy, education, love, art, and the solution to racism by Alice Bernstein and colleagues. Mrs. Bernstein is a columnist for the Harlem Times and other journals.

Nancy Huntting, Aesthetic Realism Consultant “I am proud to have seen that Aesthetic Realism is the greatest force for individuality of a true kind as it shows what a person has in common with all people on this diverse earth!”

4 Papers by Nancy Huntting given in Aesthetic Realism Seminars:

♦ Can a Woman Really Know Herself?—& Does She Want To?
♦ The Most Popular Mistakes about Love—& How Not to Make Them!
♦ Respect, Contempt, and Individuality
♦ How Can I Take Care of Me & Be Fair to You: A Woman’s Urgent Question

How My Stuttering Ended by Miriam Mondlin. “A matter that concerns many people in America and has caused a great deal of pain is stuttering. From Aesthetic Realism I learned the scientific cause of stuttering and my stuttering ended!”

Ruth Oron, Essayist “On this blog, you can read articles on various subjects such as: peace in the middle east, economic justice, essays on art and the family….I’m grateful to learn from Aesthetic Realism, the education founded by poet & critic Eli Siegel, that every subject, including the self, is related.”

Leila Rosen, English teacher “Some of the papers you’ll find on this site describe the great effectiveness of the Aesthetic Realism Teaching Method. And there are also papers on subjects that concern everyone, including love, kindness, justice, and how to see people.”

Christopher Balchin, Educator “Aesthetic Realism Can End Racism”—a blog that describes and documents Aesthetic Realism can teach people to have the just and accurate way of seeing people that opposes and can end the brutality of racism.