Balance and Symmetry

  

I'm obsessed with this photo from House Beautiful. I have it saved in my iPad photos along with several other design photos and every time I flip through them, I stop at this one. There's something about it that I find intriguing and almost mesmerizing.
So when I stumbled upon the picture again last night and said to my boyfriend for the 10th time, "I just love this picture," he asked me to explain what I loved so much about it. It made me think and I suddenly had a hard time putting my finger on it.
I thought about how the mirror draws me in and is really ornate and striking. And I love the color combo, which is pretty simple- white, steel blue, gold, tan, brown. And the flowers and throw add beautiful punches of purple. But there was more... and suddenly I realized why this room is so perfect to me-- because it appears to be practically symmetrical. Everything is balanced out. And so I realized, maybe it's not so much the room that I'm in love with, but the PICTURE of the room. For example, if I walked into this actual room from another angle and saw this area from a different perspective, would it still have the same affect on me?
Possibly not.

Here are some other strikingly balanced looking rooms....



{Houzz}



{Houzz}



{Lonny Mag}



{Lonny Mag}



{House Beautiful}




{Lonny Mag}



{Lonny Mag}