Figure 1 – Concentric Rings. (c) DE Wolf 2019.

I was attracted the other day by some concentric iridescent rings in a store window. The result is Figure 1, taken with my IPhone 6. What belies this image is our attraction to shiny objects. What is the fascination? And I am reminded of what Sir Isaac Newton famously said:

“I do not know what I may appear to the world; but to myself, I seem to have been only like a boy playing on the seashore, and diverting myself now and then in finding a smoother pebbly or prettier shell than ordinary, while the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me.”

There is a great appeal to shiny, smooth, and pretty objects – to the unusual and unexpected. I believe that this sits at the interface between the physiological phenomenon of sight and aesthetic experience. We are all drawn to iridescence. It dazzles us and awakens us. It is an almost religious experience. Indeed, the very root of the word iridescence is the Greek goddess of the rainbow, Iris, who was the messenger of the gods.