As a followup to Umberto Eco’s History of Beauty, I have also created a presentation on his “On Ugliness” for my course.
Surprisingly, I found the images and related passages about ugliness much more interesting than the ones about beauty. As Eco himself notes, the topic of ugliness is one that is written about much less frequently than ugliness, so it was certainly a change of pace.
There’s no steady mention of it, but what I gathered from reading this course is that there is some kind of link between ugliness and fear. Society tends to find ugly that which it is afraid of, either within themselves or from the world around them. This would perhaps be a thesis that is worth exploring a bit more.
Most intriguing of all was the conclusion, which suggests that perhaps there is no longer an aesthetic differentiation between beauty and ugliness in our current culture. On one hand, we still revere those with classic beauty like Brad Pitt or Nicole Kidman, but on at the same time we idolize someone like Marilyn Manson.
In the past 100 years or so, the images Eco chose to represent both beautiful and ugly are hard to tell apart.
What does this say about the status of art?
I think, if nothing else, it likely reflects the confusion and frustration in art theory and philosophy of art in trying to define exactly what art is. What gets included and what doesn’t?
Check out the presentation below and let me know what you think.
On Ugliness on Prezi
On Ugliness on Prezi
Love the topic and presentation. I wish I could hear the full thing. I love Eco too, but I haven’t read “On Ugliness.” I can see the shifts in thinking from periods like the Enlightenment focusing on science and rationality. We might be seeing a shift in ugly from industrialization in the train wreck image.
I think beauty/ugly is still a strong dichotomy today and still has aesthetic value, though. I think we relate to it differently, but I think it still holds sway consciously and in our subconscious lives. I would say that Marylin Manson has an analogous attraction to medieval monsters – still ugly but magnetic. I wonder if ugliness today is starting to be portrayed by Millenials as the opposite of belonging, positivity, etc. It’s also fun to think about beauty/ugly and hipsters.
As far as the dichotomy between beautiful and ugly goes, I think that is likely one of those things that it is much easier to see when you look back on a time period retrospectively rather than in the moment. However it does seem like some of the more modern art movements like the readymades have made the issue of beauty in art, if nothing else, a lot more confusing! I think your analogy between Marilyn Manson and the medieval monsters is a really good one though.