Welcome! to my website. Read about my work and what I'm learning from Aesthetic Realism, founded by the great American poet and critic Eli Siegel. This education has made me warmer to other people, and I am having the expression I always hoped for.
According to Aesthetic Realism, it is everyone’s deepest desire to like the world through knowing it. As I see more and more evidence for this, I feel I am in a friendly world!
I began my study in 1980, and the world immediately began to look brighter and more interesting. As I study Aesthetic Realism now, with greater freshness all the time, my work and life are flourishing in ways I want people to know about. — Mary Fagan
About the Aesthetic Realism Foundation
The Aesthetic Realism Foundation is a not-for-profit 01(c)(3) educational foundation located at 141 Greene Street in New York City. There are many ways of studying Aesthetic Realism – knowledge urgently needed by the people of this world – through classes, community outreach programs, public seminars, special events, and a periodical, The Right of Aesthetic Realism to Be Known. Read more about Aesthetic Realism in these historic documents:
1. From the Proclamation Honoring the Centenary of
Eli Siegel by Mayor Martin O’Malley of
Baltimore, Maryland* “ELI SIEGEL DAY”
“Whereas, the people of Baltimore are proud to join with the Enoch Pratt Free Library, Congressman Elijah E. Cummings, Maryland Historical Society, Coppin State College, Eubie Blake National Jazz Institute, Morgan State University, former Mayor Kurt L. Schmoke, and others in honoring the centenary of the great Baltimorean poet, philosopher, and educator Eli Siegel (1902-1978), who in 1941 founded the philosophy Aesthetic Realism; and Whereas, Eli Siegel grew up in Baltimore, and his contributions to world thought began with writings completed in this city, some appearing in such Baltimore publications as Horizons of Johns Hopkins University, the Modern Quarterly, his columns in the Baltimore American; and
Whereas, he won the esteemed Nation Poetry Prize in 1925 for his “Hot Afternoons Have Been in Montana,” which he said was affected by thoughts of Druid Hill Park, and about which William Carlos Williams wrote, “I say definitely that that single poem, out of a thousand others written in the past quarter century, secures our place in the cultural world”; and<
Whereas, the honesty, kindness, and greatness of mind Eli Siegel possessed were described in the Baltimore Sun by Donald Kirkley: “Baltimore friends close to him at the time [that he won the Nation prize] will testify to a certain integrity and steadfastness of purpose which distinguished Mr. Siegel.... He refused to exploit a flood of publicity. He wanted to investigate the whole reach of human knowledge ... to discover in its labyrinth some order or system”; and
Whereas, Eli Siegel showed that 1) the deepest desire of every person is to like the world honestly, 2) humanity’s largest danger is contempt, “the addition to self through the lessening of something else,” 3) “The world, art, and self explain each other: each is the aesthetic oneness of opposites”; and his scholarship and historic comprehension are in his books, beginning with Self and World, the classes he taught which changed people’s lives magnificently, his thousands of lectures on the arts, sciences, and history; and
Whereas, this education he founded, enabling people to see the world and others with the respect and kindness they deserve, including people of different races and nationalities, is continued by Class Chairman Ellen Reiss and the faculty of the not-for-profit Aesthetic Realism Foundation, and is used as a Teaching Method with unprecedented success by educators in public schools. We salute Eli Siegel for his great contributions to knowledge and humanity beginning in the City of Baltimore.”
* Martin O’Malley was elected Governor of Maryland in November 2006 and re-elected in 2010.
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2. From The Congressional Record, "Honoring Eli Siegel" by Congressman Elijah E. Cummings of Maryland
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According to Aesthetic Realism, it is everyone’s deepest desire to like the world through knowing it. As I see more and more evidence for this, I feel I am in a friendly world!
I began my study in 1980, and the world immediately began to look brighter and more interesting. As I study Aesthetic Realism now, with greater freshness all the time, my work and life are flourishing in ways I want people to know about. — Mary Fagan
About the Aesthetic Realism Foundation
The Aesthetic Realism Foundation is a not-for-profit 01(c)(3) educational foundation located at 141 Greene Street in New York City. There are many ways of studying Aesthetic Realism – knowledge urgently needed by the people of this world – through classes, community outreach programs, public seminars, special events, and a periodical, The Right of Aesthetic Realism to Be Known. Read more about Aesthetic Realism in these historic documents:
1. From the Proclamation Honoring the Centenary of
Eli Siegel by Mayor Martin O’Malley of
Baltimore, Maryland* “ELI SIEGEL DAY”
“Whereas, the people of Baltimore are proud to join with the Enoch Pratt Free Library, Congressman Elijah E. Cummings, Maryland Historical Society, Coppin State College, Eubie Blake National Jazz Institute, Morgan State University, former Mayor Kurt L. Schmoke, and others in honoring the centenary of the great Baltimorean poet, philosopher, and educator Eli Siegel (1902-1978), who in 1941 founded the philosophy Aesthetic Realism; and Whereas, Eli Siegel grew up in Baltimore, and his contributions to world thought began with writings completed in this city, some appearing in such Baltimore publications as Horizons of Johns Hopkins University, the Modern Quarterly, his columns in the Baltimore American; and
Whereas, he won the esteemed Nation Poetry Prize in 1925 for his “Hot Afternoons Have Been in Montana,” which he said was affected by thoughts of Druid Hill Park, and about which William Carlos Williams wrote, “I say definitely that that single poem, out of a thousand others written in the past quarter century, secures our place in the cultural world”; and<
Whereas, the honesty, kindness, and greatness of mind Eli Siegel possessed were described in the Baltimore Sun by Donald Kirkley: “Baltimore friends close to him at the time [that he won the Nation prize] will testify to a certain integrity and steadfastness of purpose which distinguished Mr. Siegel.... He refused to exploit a flood of publicity. He wanted to investigate the whole reach of human knowledge ... to discover in its labyrinth some order or system”; and
Whereas, Eli Siegel showed that 1) the deepest desire of every person is to like the world honestly, 2) humanity’s largest danger is contempt, “the addition to self through the lessening of something else,” 3) “The world, art, and self explain each other: each is the aesthetic oneness of opposites”; and his scholarship and historic comprehension are in his books, beginning with Self and World, the classes he taught which changed people’s lives magnificently, his thousands of lectures on the arts, sciences, and history; and
Whereas, this education he founded, enabling people to see the world and others with the respect and kindness they deserve, including people of different races and nationalities, is continued by Class Chairman Ellen Reiss and the faculty of the not-for-profit Aesthetic Realism Foundation, and is used as a Teaching Method with unprecedented success by educators in public schools. We salute Eli Siegel for his great contributions to knowledge and humanity beginning in the City of Baltimore.”
* Martin O’Malley was elected Governor of Maryland in November 2006 and re-elected in 2010.
2. From The Congressional Record, "Honoring Eli Siegel" by Congressman Elijah E. Cummings of Maryland
In the U.S. House of Representatives, Friday, July 26, 2002:
“A teaching method, based on Aesthetic Realism, has been tremendously successful [and is] an effective tool to stop racism and promote tolerance; because it enables people of all races to see others with respect and kindness. The education of Aesthetic Realism will be studied in every English, literature, and art classroom across the nation for years to come.”
“A teaching method, based on Aesthetic Realism, has been tremendously successful [and is] an effective tool to stop racism and promote tolerance; because it enables people of all races to see others with respect and kindness. The education of Aesthetic Realism will be studied in every English, literature, and art classroom across the nation for years to come.”