Chapter 1

Art as the Oneness of Opposites:
An Outline of the Theory

The Opposites Theory of art is both objective and subjective. In “objective” terms, the theory states that in a novel, a painting, a play, a musical composition, a dance, there is an arrangement of opposites like sameness and difference, oneness and manyness, rest and motion, continuity and change, which can be felt or discerned, with satisfaction, by a possible reader, observer, spectator. In “subjective” terms, the Opposites Theory states that when a reader, observer, spectator has got the artistic satisfaction, he has felt or seen, even perhaps without knowing it, the simultaneous presence, togetherness, oneness of opposites in reality, like sameness and difference, oneness and manyness, rest and motion, continuity and change.

The arts in general, the Opposites Theory states, find their unity in the presence of opposites in each of them. In a symphony by Beethoven, there is, for example, continuity and change; there is continuity and change in a novel by James; in a painting by Piero della Francesca; in the Hamlet of Shakespeare; in a ballet or modern dance. Meanwhile, it should be noted, this early, that the pair of opposites called continuity and change are commented on, illustrated, intensified by the other philosophic pairs of opposites I have mentioned; and by still others of diverse kinds—some of them exceedingly technical: for instance, design and detail more technically exemplify continuity and change, or rest and motion.

We Can Begin with Beethoven

We certainly can begin with Beethoven. In every one of his works, there is something which persists even as other things change. Persistence or continuity and change at one moment of hearing are central in Beethoven. A deep thing, continuing, is intensified at any one moment by specific auditory happenings—flourishings, deviations, repetitions, even tricks. A symphony of Beethoven is like a tree, with the sturdiness of trunk instantly with and explained by the lightsomeness and changingness of branch, twig, leaf.

And if we take Henry James’s short novel The Turn of the Screw, there is a something which insists, persists, lasts—is ominously sturdy and deep—which all the time is commented on by sentences, phrases, conversations, meditations, surmises. Deeply as art, The Turn of the Screw is like the Ninth Symphony of the musical German. A way that is continuous, is at rest, is the same, finds life in details, in changes, in careful and spontaneous mutations that accompany this depth, explain it, intensify it.

Concerning Piero della Francesca’s Resurrection of Christ: something large is in the mind of the visual Italian. He uses sky, soldiers, stones, expressions, fabrics to assert the continuity of this depth. Details in art continue something already begun; and they do that in Piero’s work. In Beethoven there is continuity asserted by detail in time; in Piero a thought that continues is asserted by detail on a surface. In Beethoven there is continuity, in the painter coalition; but both continuity and coalition are ideas of details in the accurate behalf of oneness.

A Dance, Too

Acoalition and continuity accompanied by details in motion are what one finds in a dance. There is idea in a dance, modern or ancient. The idea is the continuing thing, the same thing—made one, through being its lively self, by the steps, the motions, the attitudes, the gestures, the pauses as detail. A dance, too, shows the oneness and manyness of anything that is real; that is, of anything.

Further, all architecture is like a planned tree. A central, persisting something is widened, narrowed, given space to, obstructed, played with, made heavy by the details of arranged matter. Reality is architectural; architecture is an exemplification of the persistence and heaviness of reality which is also mobile through detail and gracefulness in space.