Recently, I happened to see a breathtaking series of photographs published by a stranger, a regular Joe, in his blog, shared through social media. The beauty of the pictures was so captivating. I myself have many friends who click photographs with immense beauty - of nature, of animals, of people.
But, is that beauty celebrated in our culture? What is exactly being celebrated? To answer that question, you merely need to look at the most celebrated works of art of the 20th century. For example, art like this. Or this. Or this. A visit to any art museum would tell you something - the zeitgeist of art is no more beauty. You would get to see pleasure-forming beauty in the paintings of 19th century or beyond in the past. But what you would see celebrated in the 20th century paintings is not definitely that. You may see an expression of philosophy. But then, that expression is not beautiful. That philosophy is expressed through its opposite - Ugliness.
You wouldn't find the beautiful picture of a bird, flying over a sea multi-colored by the sunset, in an Art gallery. That belongs to blogs, twitter & Facebook. But if you want to find an Artist's Shit , you just need to visit the art gallery next door.
Of all times, ours is a culture deprived of Beauty in fine arts. In our culture, beauty is now strictly restricted to only three aspects of arts: Photography, Film and Architecture. But, none of them are fine arts. They are industries driven by popular sentiments and they have to be beautiful to be of money-value. You can't attract people by posting the photo of your bathroom closet. You can't make money by making a movie of a hundred ugly zombies eating out each other. You can't sell your building by making it look ugly. But, wherever ugliness can be sold in arts, you see that beauty is relegated to the position of an unwanted servant. You grudgingly live with the reality, at best. You wouldn't find beauty celebrated in words through Literature. You wouldn't find beauty celebrated through curves in paintings. You wouldn't find beauty celebrated through the shapes of sculptures.
Why is our cultural philosophy against beauty? They typical defense offered is: life is ugly, what the artist expresses is just the ugliness of life and of art. It is a philosophical expression. The long list of -isms of fine arts is an admission of that fact. But this argument does not quite give you a proper answer on multiple counts.
1) Pain of life need not be always expressed through ugliness. It can be expressed beautifully. It is an absurdity to claim that the classical period did not portray the pain of life. They portrayed it, but beautifully. If you have any doubt that suffering can be portrayed beautifully, take a look at Micheal Angelo's Pieta. It is an artists's disposition that determines the medium through which they want to express what he needs to express. So, when an artists claims that he expressed the ugliness of life through ugliness, that answers only one part of the question. What made him chose ugliness as a medium still remains unanswered. A counter-argument could be that this is his personal choice. But then, that is still missing the point. Why would an entire culture make that choice? Why did the classical artists not make that choice?
2) Art is not just a medium of expression of philosophy. While you can convey messages through art, it is not a medium through which you can express any philosophy completely. Otherwise, words would have been redundant. Art is ultimately an expression of a human mind that seeks attention. Why someone chose ugliness over beauty in getting that attention is not answered by the message that is being expressed.
To me, the answer to this question strongly correlates to another axiom of our times - "Beauty is in the eyes of the beholder". In other words, Beauty is not an objective value any more. When beauty is made subjective, it loses its importance and significance. If beauty is not objective, then who is to say that a rotting cow head is ugly? If beauty is subjective, who is to say that Mona Lisa is beautiful? Set against this cultural background, it is no wonder that artists does not consider beauty as a higher virtue to strive to accomplish. The paradigm has shifted, but shifted downwards. Beauty is brought down to the level of ugliness.
This is what moral relativity does to a culture. Beauty is not the only virtue suffered at the hands of the crusaders of moral relativity. It is just one of them. But there is something special about beauty. All the other virtues are concealed within the human mind. But, beauty is not a concealed virtue. It is revealed in nature. You can't escape the reality of it, even if you want to. Everyday the sun sinks in the ocean, you are told about its objective existence within human nature. Every flower that you see reminds you of that. The only way to say that beauty is subjective is to close your eyes, look at the dark and say it aloud. But, as a culture, we are promoting this mindset and that is why you see ugliness of post-modernism is celebrated. But, every time we click a picture through our cameras, the reality gets trapped. The camera doesn't have a filter of moral subjectivity to kill the beauty that sees it. So far. Until we invent cameras that are robots programmed to mirror our moral subjectivity.
NB: A humble note to my photographer friends- if and when you take photography seriously and decide to turn that into fine art, please do not fall prey to the pitfall of treating beauty equivalent to ugliness. You may get some applauds, but that would be at the cost of betraying the very thing that attracted you to the art: Beauty.
But, is that beauty celebrated in our culture? What is exactly being celebrated? To answer that question, you merely need to look at the most celebrated works of art of the 20th century. For example, art like this. Or this. Or this. A visit to any art museum would tell you something - the zeitgeist of art is no more beauty. You would get to see pleasure-forming beauty in the paintings of 19th century or beyond in the past. But what you would see celebrated in the 20th century paintings is not definitely that. You may see an expression of philosophy. But then, that expression is not beautiful. That philosophy is expressed through its opposite - Ugliness.
You wouldn't find the beautiful picture of a bird, flying over a sea multi-colored by the sunset, in an Art gallery. That belongs to blogs, twitter & Facebook. But if you want to find an Artist's Shit , you just need to visit the art gallery next door.
Of all times, ours is a culture deprived of Beauty in fine arts. In our culture, beauty is now strictly restricted to only three aspects of arts: Photography, Film and Architecture. But, none of them are fine arts. They are industries driven by popular sentiments and they have to be beautiful to be of money-value. You can't attract people by posting the photo of your bathroom closet. You can't make money by making a movie of a hundred ugly zombies eating out each other. You can't sell your building by making it look ugly. But, wherever ugliness can be sold in arts, you see that beauty is relegated to the position of an unwanted servant. You grudgingly live with the reality, at best. You wouldn't find beauty celebrated in words through Literature. You wouldn't find beauty celebrated through curves in paintings. You wouldn't find beauty celebrated through the shapes of sculptures.
Why is our cultural philosophy against beauty? They typical defense offered is: life is ugly, what the artist expresses is just the ugliness of life and of art. It is a philosophical expression. The long list of -isms of fine arts is an admission of that fact. But this argument does not quite give you a proper answer on multiple counts.
1) Pain of life need not be always expressed through ugliness. It can be expressed beautifully. It is an absurdity to claim that the classical period did not portray the pain of life. They portrayed it, but beautifully. If you have any doubt that suffering can be portrayed beautifully, take a look at Micheal Angelo's Pieta. It is an artists's disposition that determines the medium through which they want to express what he needs to express. So, when an artists claims that he expressed the ugliness of life through ugliness, that answers only one part of the question. What made him chose ugliness as a medium still remains unanswered. A counter-argument could be that this is his personal choice. But then, that is still missing the point. Why would an entire culture make that choice? Why did the classical artists not make that choice?
2) Art is not just a medium of expression of philosophy. While you can convey messages through art, it is not a medium through which you can express any philosophy completely. Otherwise, words would have been redundant. Art is ultimately an expression of a human mind that seeks attention. Why someone chose ugliness over beauty in getting that attention is not answered by the message that is being expressed.
To me, the answer to this question strongly correlates to another axiom of our times - "Beauty is in the eyes of the beholder". In other words, Beauty is not an objective value any more. When beauty is made subjective, it loses its importance and significance. If beauty is not objective, then who is to say that a rotting cow head is ugly? If beauty is subjective, who is to say that Mona Lisa is beautiful? Set against this cultural background, it is no wonder that artists does not consider beauty as a higher virtue to strive to accomplish. The paradigm has shifted, but shifted downwards. Beauty is brought down to the level of ugliness.
This is what moral relativity does to a culture. Beauty is not the only virtue suffered at the hands of the crusaders of moral relativity. It is just one of them. But there is something special about beauty. All the other virtues are concealed within the human mind. But, beauty is not a concealed virtue. It is revealed in nature. You can't escape the reality of it, even if you want to. Everyday the sun sinks in the ocean, you are told about its objective existence within human nature. Every flower that you see reminds you of that. The only way to say that beauty is subjective is to close your eyes, look at the dark and say it aloud. But, as a culture, we are promoting this mindset and that is why you see ugliness of post-modernism is celebrated. But, every time we click a picture through our cameras, the reality gets trapped. The camera doesn't have a filter of moral subjectivity to kill the beauty that sees it. So far. Until we invent cameras that are robots programmed to mirror our moral subjectivity.
NB: A humble note to my photographer friends- if and when you take photography seriously and decide to turn that into fine art, please do not fall prey to the pitfall of treating beauty equivalent to ugliness. You may get some applauds, but that would be at the cost of betraying the very thing that attracted you to the art: Beauty.
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