Among other things, painting communicates through visual opposites, such as light/dark, contrary colours, oppsosing edges etc. such that the interpretation of art involves translating such visual opposites into conceptual opposites such as life and death, internal and external, divine and mortal. In the words of art historian T. J. Clark, in visual art, opposites are polarized into a single geometric form, which "comes to stand, finally, for nothing less than the unstoppable tendency we all have, as viewers, to make elementary binaries generate things. Things like us." This paper will explore the art criticism of Clark, the ways in which he wrestels with visual opposites in order to help us locate oursleves in the oppositions of life.