The Beauty of Sets

Monday 20th January

How often have you admired in shops a display of pottery or paperweights, or just a collection of  books all with the same spines – in other words a set?  What is it about sets, collections of things similar, that is so pleasing to the eye.  It almost doesn’t matter what the collection is, even something quite naff that you wouldn’t really want in your home, if there a few of them then they take on a collective beauty that each individual piece on its own simply doesn’t have.

There is nothing sadder than a bookshelf with just a few tired looking books trying to stand up, whereas a full groaning bookshelf is a pleasure to behold.  No-one even wants to look at a handful of desultory CDs, whereas a few shelves of neat CDs draws you in.

And when you decide to buy that piece of pottery you so admired in the shop, and get it home and unwrapped and place it solitary on your own shelf how sad it looks, how lonely, how insignificant, how pointless.  You almost regret buying it.  But buy a second similar piece and place it alongside and it straightaway looks better.  By the time you have a set they begin to look splendid.

So all I can advise is carry on collecting, a collection is always better than an individual, that is the undeniable beauty of sets.