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Why Beauty Matters... or does it?

Beauty matters. Humans are genetically programmed to mate with the most eye appealing mate.

However having said that I certainly have seen some unattractive people marry and have children.

Many years ago a circus came to town and some of their employees would eat at the restaurants in town. I was eating breakfast with a friend at Dennys when a very ugly couple came in. Their appearance was hard to describe except both had deformities that made them very very ugly. They had a little girl who while not physically deformed was not very attractive either. The little girl was obese which didn't help matters either. I felt sorry for the child and kinda mad at her parents for bringing an unfortunant kid into a harsh unforgiving world.

My point is this. Lack of physical attractiveness doesn't mean they won't be having and making babies.
 
Cainkane1 said:
They had a little girl who while not physically deformed was not very attractive either. The little girl was obese which didn't help matters either. I felt sorry for the child and kinda mad at her parents for bringing an unfortunant kid into a harsh unforgiving world.
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WTH?
 
Cainkane1 said:
Beauty matters. Humans are genetically programmed to mate with the most eye appealing mate.
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If that were the case surely one woman would getting a helluva lotta action and there be 3 billion other pissed-off females. I think rather there are certain proportions which are preferred, that plenty of people will have, otherwise we'd have died out long ago.

Anyway, there was yet another study reported only the other day about who the most attractive woman in the world and oh noes! - it wasn't Angelina Jolie.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/8421076.stm

Shania Twain has the most perfect face apparently.
 
Tastes vary. I don't find either Angeline Jolie nor Shania Twain as the most attractive women around. I mean, they're not ugly, but they still don't do anything for me.
 
The Subject of this Thread - Art (not Beaty as Such)

Ok, guys, I realize that taking a few minutes to watch a BBC documentary may be too much to ask in this busy age ;-) but seriously you are bit off the topic I intended.

In the programme I linked to in my initial post philosopher Roger Scruton criticizes modern art (including modern architecture) and what it represent to date.

Scruton asserts that, wheras the aim of classical art was to celebrate and find beauty (even in the mundane), modern art is a "cult of ugliness" which reflects the assertion that since the world is disturbing art should be disturbing.

Instead Scruton claims that "the goal of the artist is to show the real in the light of the ideal, and so transfigure it".

So, what do you think?
 
I'd have a lot more respect for the creators of "ugly modern art" if they could demonstrate to me first that they are as talented as the classical artists who produced the "beautiful classical art." If all you're known for is signing a urinal and hanging it from a ceiling, then I can't tell if you're really qualified to make your statement that "art is dead." Maybe you're more a wise*** than an artist. I like biting sarcasm and social commentary that pillories the status quo as much as the next guy, but I'm hoping to experience much more than that when I visit an art museum. To me, skillful technique *is* important in my appreciation. Michelangelo's David isn't just amazing for its beauty; it's also amazing because some guy *made that out of a block of marble.*
 
The Shrike said:
I'd have a lot more respect for the creators of "ugly modern art" if they could demonstrate to me first that they are as talented as the classical artists who produced the "beautiful classical art." If all you're known for is signing a urinal and hanging it from a ceiling, then I can't tell if you're really qualified to make your statement that "art is dead." Maybe you're more a wise*** than an artist. I like biting sarcasm and social commentary that pillories the status quo as much as the next guy, but I'm hoping to experience much more than that when I visit an art museum. To me, skillful technique *is* important in my appreciation. Michelangelo's David isn't just amazing for its beauty; it's also amazing because some guy *made that out of a block of marble.*
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Agreed!
 
Another thought occurs to me... would it be a little two-faced to present a work intended to reject the artistic establishment, but then expect accolades for the work from that same establishment?

That said, I don't think significant art has to be beautiful. If one has a problem with too many "ugly" works getting all the attention, I suspect it is not the artists or works themselves, but the way attention falls upon them that is at issue. Is it accurately reflecting overall interest across a relevant demographic? Or is it reflecting the particular choices of a few influential people? And if it's the latter, can anything really be done about it?

I mostly think: stop worrying and seek out, promote, or make (if you have the talent) what you like, and don't fret so much about what other people seem to like.
 
CWL said:
Have a look at this programme: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=65YpzZrwKI4&feature=PlayList&p=71A4A928111A6006&index=0&playnext=1

What do you think?
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Thanks for linking to this. I just finished watching it and found it quite interesting. While I don't agree with all of Roger Scruton's opinions (or the personal philosophy that informs those opinions) I think he is more right than wrong about the aesthetic cul de sac that modern art, music and architecture has slowly made its way down over the last seventy or so years.

There is good, meaningful art in every age (yes, even some art that Scruton might sneer at), but for the most part modern art seems to be either tiresome didactic preaching, slick, cynical exercises in form over substance or a means of mere therapy by and for the disenfranchised and damaged. I speak as someone who attended art school and saw a lot of dubious stuff (some of it created by me) that was applauded for its supposed originality and expressiveness. The modern impulse to put a frame around anything and everything and call it "art" is potentially a very powerful and liberating (and even an arguably good) thing, but as the saying goes, with great power comes great responsibility and "responsibility" is part of what seems to be missing from a lot of modern art.

I think where I differ most with Scruton is over where beauty can be found. Yes, it can be found in the face of a person or a landscape or still life, but it can also be found in the design of a car or Blake's "dark Satanic Mills" or even the inside of a microchip.

If you place Michael Craig-Martin's (interviewed in part one of the program) philosophy of art as one side of the ideological spectrum and Roger Scruton's philosophy on the opposite side, I'd find myself somewhere in the middle third of the spectrum, though probably closer to Scruton's side. I'd hate to live in a world where either side held complete sway.
 
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I saw the original programme, While I might have great sympathy with Scruton's main point he, as usual makes a very unconvincing case - for a philosopher , he's an awfully poor debater.
 
Scruton basically dismisses some works as ugly, and others as calls other works beautiful based on little but his own personal taste. If an old work resembles a modern one in the way it disturbs, he says that the old one somehow redeems the ugliness by making it beautiful, but the new one does not. His seems to regard his own personal judgment as absolute truth.

I think that is highly problematic. Some may have the same experience of beauty when seeing things Scruton considers ugly, and vice versa. When discussing beauty, one cannot ignore the old saying that it is "in the eye of the beholder". I can sympathise with artists who are told to cut up their work and throw diarrhea on it to "make it interesting" and think there should be a place for traditional art forms -- originality should not be the only thing that makes something "art" -- but I also think there can be beauty in a crazy and ridiculous idea, there can be beauty in a purely functional form, and there can even be beauty in pure randomness.

He further argues that experiencing "beauty" is experiencing something out of this world, something trancendental, even divine. I don't experience beauty like that, but rather seeing something beautiful gives me a feeling of connectedness with the world around me instead of some sort of platonic realm. I find experiencing how beautiful the real world is much more spiritually fulfilling than imagining that there is something perfect somewhere where we can't directly experience it. A sense of beauty therefore gives me a feeling of being brought back down to Earth. I don't see how my sense of beauty is in any way less valid than Scruton's
 
commandlinegamer said:
Shania Twain has the most perfect face apparently.
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I'd say she deserves that honor. I personally think that Elizabeth Hurley and Carmen Electra also have very stunning, perfect faces in terms of symmetry and proportions and so forth.

I think any of those three could be held up as the perfect example of female beauty. But I realize this is a subjective distinction.

Angelina Jolie? Please.. she's hot and all that. But the oversized lips just don't do it for me. Again, I realize this is subjective. But that's my taste.
 
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[pseudo moderator mode] Whiplash: this thread is about the purpose and object of art in light of the provacative statements made by Roger Scruton on the matter (not about who's the prettiest of Angelina Jolie or Shania Twain, etc). Please stay on topic. [/pseudo moderator mode]

Although I too would agree with Scruton's point that modern art seems to be stuck in a cul de sac and an obsession with originality and reflecting a brute or, if you will, "ugly" reality, I also find it problematic that he somewhere seems to be claiming that there can be an objective standard of beauty. This is of course a major flaw in his argument. Again, beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

To me, art is about stirring emotions - good or bad. Another problem I see with Scruton's view is that it appears to be very idealistic. Scruton appears to presuppose the existence of "the divine" (which is a bit odd to me as an atheist and humanist).

Having said that, I do agree that modern architecture has committed many crimes against humanity. Large areas of my hometown of Stockholm, Sweden were also demolished in the 1960's - 70's to make space for buildings which the majority think are ugly. Architects should IMHO be more willing to consider the tastes of the people who actually have to live in their buildings...
 
But in the programme, Scruton stands in front of an abandoned building which appears to be business/industrial premises and says the reason it is like that is because it is it ugly.
Absolute rubbish - there could be countless economic reasons in this recent recession why it isn't in use. Aesthetics is low on the list. Given an economic boom it could be back in use .
 
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Rrose Selavy said:
But in the programme, Scruton stands in front of an abandoned building which appears to be business/industrial premises and says the reason it is like that is because it is it ugly.
Absolute rubbish - there could be countless economic reasons in this recent recession why it isn't in use. Aesthetics is low on the list.
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True, saying that those buildings were abondoned because of their aesthetics (or, rather, lack thereof) is a bold proposition for which Scruton offers no evidence whatsoever. In Stockholm (where there is a shortage of both offices and housing) for instance even the ugly buildings are occupied so your assumption that economics has more to to with it is reasonable.

Scruton making a flawed argument aside, it is still a reasonable view that the aestetic views of those who will, or are likely to, occupy a building could certainly be considered more by (most) modern architects.
 
Like it or not, we are living in the postmodern age of art.

And whatever your feelings about postmodernism, that actually means at least one thing sort of concrete. It means that we've passed the "modernist" notion that art is part of a continuum of progress. Mondrian thought that his work was so perfect that he would be the last painter. Most generations of "Modern" artists saw their work as displacing "outmoded" ways of thinking about art. The impressionists thought that their work was a more alive and real reflection of the visual world than the stodgy painters before them. And so on and so on. Modern art was a period where artists viewed themselves as making progress the way scientists did. Sure Newton was a genius, but with the advent of Einstein, Newtonian physics was in a way displaced. That's how most modern movements saw themselves, as leaps forward, displacing the relevance of the work of the past, if not invalidating the masters who made it.

Now, there isn't really an excuse for an artist not to know that their work is the product of their cultural history, their moment in time, personal taste, and the audience that happens to be around. There are movements, there are changing tastes, but general thrusts are seen more as a realm of fashion than like science, in the way that, while there is innovation, current taste isn't a pinnacle, but a cultural moment, which could swing any way in the future, and even now is more fractured than ever.

Artists make all kinds of work now, it isn't rare for a single gallery to have one room full of lush realistic portraits, and on the next wall, a tickle me elmo doll stapled upside down and painted black.
 
I must confess I did not finish watching this little rant. It reminds me a little of John Gardner's egregious On Moral Fiction, in which he starts by defining art as something he likes, and then goes out of his way to find examples that displease him while utterly ignoring those that fit his criteria.

Beauty is certainly important, but even acknowledging that does not always help us to agree on what beauty is, and art is also about other aspects of our moral and emotional lives. Though it's true that some artists have gone out of their way to assault traditional ideas of beauty (look at Picasso and his women, for example - Les Demoiselles d'Avignon, in which in-your-face ugliness is presented with his sneeringly cool mastery of color and composition), not all have, and the fact that we can now appreciate art in which other ideas are prominent does not mean that nobody cares about beauty any more.

No doubt Scruton has some point. There's some pretty bad art out there, and some pretty bad ideas about art. I just don't think he's found anything very new or very important to say. To say that the goal of art is "to show the real in the light of the ideal, etc." is, to my mind, not only an idea that diminishes the scope of art, but allows the rules by which it is diminished to be manipulated to taste. A Marxist could adopt it as the maxim of socialist realism without skipping a beat.
 
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