General and Specific

I think that the most essential "making one of opposites" that occurs to create beauty is the blissful confusion of specificity and generalization. While Scarry argues that appreciation happens with attention to detail, and Danto might say that it is the idea of the object that gives us pleasure, I am inclined to say that it has to be the convergence of these two poles that allows for transcendence. This is Siegel's argument entirely; I am simply narrowing it to a single pair of opposites.

I believe it was John Berger who, discussing the politics of the nude female form, said that our fascination with seeing people unclothed is based in the perceived unity of the subject with all of mankind or womankind because of their shared anatomy. That universal idea of Man or Woman, combined the the specificity of the individual's personality creates an interest that we have forever found attractive. For something (or someone) to exist as both a specific and a generalization is, I think, the most profound tension. It is the struggle of material versus immaterial.

Allen McCollum's shapes are a good example of this.

Kierstin