Monoaesthetic Mixtures in Language, Culture and Biology

Various idiomatic expressions, cultural creations and biological traits have been selected for due to the amusing, contradictory way in which they reference more and less exciting opposites. This can be demonstrated by the improbable structural similarity of otherwise independently-derived aesthetic phenomena, many of which are collected here for reference in a series of lists.

Georges Lacombe’s “Blue seascape, Wave Effect.” WikiArt. Public Domain.

© 2024 Andrew Hodgson.

Contents

· Description of Monoaesthetic Lists
∘ Assumptions
· Lists of Monoaesthetic Mixtures
∘ Temperature
∘ Fluidity
∘ Dynamism and Speed
∘ Disorder
∘ Form
∘ Brightness and Warm Colors
∘ Sound, Loudness and High Pitch
∘ Upwardness
∘ Outwardness
∘ Specific Inwardness
∘ Exciting Things in Containers
∘ Length
∘ Spikiness
∘ Large Size
∘ Multiplicity

Description of Monoaesthetic Lists

As demonstrated below in a series of lists, aesthetic phenomena can be sorted into groups that match the dualistic structure of primitive perceptual opposites. Consider, for instance, that bright versus dark, one of the earliest psychological dualities in evolutionary history, is at the same time one of the most common aesthetic juxtapositions, appearing in coloration patterns throughout the animal kingdom and in human poetry, art, decoration and myth. Likewise, the dualities sound versus silence and high pitch versus low pitch, made up of primitive auditory opposites, are mixed together with extreme intricacy in the songs of animals, for the purpose of impressing a mate, and in the music and language of humans.