Structure

I think I have finally pinned down why the silhouettes of leafless trees are so visually appealing.

On the one hand there is clearly a structure here, an intelligible form that we can grasp.
On the other hand, there is clearly shaped fashioned by a series of complex historical contingencies.

With human creations, such as buildings, towns or institutions, if we try to create structure, we do so in too rigid a fashion and when we let historical contingencies take over, we tend to lose the sense of intelligible form. Everyone engaged in creating complex objects, be they physical or organisational, needs to learn from trees.

(On the same walk we saw a woman hugging a tree while her boyfriend stood by looking slightly unsure of what to do with himself. While touch is a pretty important sense, I am inclined to think vision gets us rather more pertinent information in this case:)