Art evolves from simple to complex. Mozart's dissonance sounds harmonious to us. Three dimensions entered painting only in the Renaissance. Process theory indicates a focus on action, asymmetry, the tension of opposites, and the creation of newness as continuos with reality. Attention is the main manifestation of action in consciousness, love, and art. Art focuses and enhances attention by providing a frame, abstracting some qualities while discarding others, and exaggerating form and depicting emotional extremes. Asymmetry, often diagonal, produces movement in a painting, and is an essential component of beauty. This seems paradoxical, as many thinkers highlight symmetry, but note that in the older literature symmetry does not mean geometrical symmetry but only some general sense of balance, and, more important, that the purported symmetry is always modulated by an equally essential asymmetry in every piece of art. Symmetry appears as the frame for the creative asymmetry, and asymmetry calls our attention to significant symmetries. Art requires both newness and repetition, surprise and recognition. Creation emerges in the context of reality, a reality that is complex: first, a objective physical reality, then a collective social reality, and uppermost a personal reality. Far from objective reality, art entertain us but eventually becomes superficial and empty decoration. Too far away from collective reality, the art piece becomes difficult, even impossible to understand. Without the personal, the product is cold and uninteresting.

These views were further developed in a semi-fictional biography of the Argentine painter Hector Giuffre by Hector Sabelli; the book is in Spanish, but the web site presents a review in English.

Clinical poetry:
Poetic creation occurs spontaneously in clinical situations, or may be promoted as a technique for emotional exploration.