Book review
5⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ from me .. wonderful, well written exploration of the subject of ugliness in art, moving from the classical era to present day.
Over time, ugliness in art has derived its meaning from evolving sources. In the classical era, Greek culture was interested in the relationship between physical ugliness and moral ugliness. The Gods on Olympus were perfect beings, superior to man and unblemished in visual form. Monsters however, like harpies, sirens and Minotaurs were ugly precisely because they were hybrids and violated natural law.
In the Christian Era, ugliness is represented by the enemies of the Lord, but their ugliness was contemplated against a new idea – God created the world including its monsters, and since the Lord could not create anything ugly, therefore even ugly things were seen as redeemed in the Lord’s eyes.
By the Middle Ages, ugliness is being revealed in artistic form by humanity’s relationship with death – the message to sinners was that death was coming and that Hell was a terrifying possibility for the sinner. The Book of Revelation was the source of visual representations of monsters, evil, Satan and Hell.
As new lands were explored and fantastical tales from foreign shores arrived, fabulous monsters or strange beings fired our imaginations, a fear which we faced by creating God fearing conquerors.. eg St George defeating the dragon
Witches were commonly ugly, old and poor. Their persecution cleansed societies of their sins and found a scapegoat in the form of a sacrifice.
Poverty was ugly and so was being old. If being young and beautiful represented purity and innocence, then age could only be seen as ugly. Therefore, when a sacrifice was needed, ugly, old, poor women could be sacrificed for the greater good.
Humans had a love hate relationship with ugly things, attracted and repelled equally by monstrosities, oddities, executions and the deformed.
Ugliness took a new form in the industrial revolution, with factories, machines and a soulless existence plumbing new depths for the newly formed working class.
If riches brought light, space, healthy food and education, poverty and industrial enslavement brought wretchedness, despair, slums and a loss of hope.
Artists started to depict this ugliness as the ‘squalor of progress’, reflecting a growing urgency to improve social conditions.
The new century brought the avant-garde art movement, which, horrified by what it saw as a sickness in their civilization, prided themselves by rejecting the harmony and symmetry of the old world and reveled in breaking form to create great ugliness in their works. Their goal was to shock (think! reject the current status quo!)and they succeeded.
The futurist manifestos from Russia and Italy went further still – they exhorted society to sweep away the churches and libraries, do away with professors and museums, the jangling of moralizing, women’s scorn and the unnaturalness of feminism.
Wrapped in misogyny, their angry nihilism would fuel the Russian Revolution and countless uprisings to follow. Years later in Mao’s era, professors and the educated class would be re-educated or eliminated en masse in agreement with these ideas.
Burn the books, juxtapose monstrous images, disturb the people from their complacency.
Art which was seen as degenerate in its time now changes hands for fabulous sums. The ugly has become beautiful. As Jung said, ‘ugliness today is a sign and a symptom of great transformations to come’.
The book is crammed with a compelling narrative of these ideas and illustrated with visuals and analysis on every page, with a chapter layout that is chronological and easy to follow.
The intertwining of social considerations and the art that leads and reflects them is convincingly explored
A well earned 5 ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
- Goodreads rating – 3.86
- REVIEW – Magpie