Showing posts with label ugliness. Show all posts
Showing posts with label ugliness. Show all posts
Was Art Nouveau "the clumsy process of trying to 'dress up' the inorganic forms of modern construction in the false clothing of the natural world"?
That's what Walter Benjamin thought.
If Benjamin was right about Art Nouveau in general, then Jean Carriès was a dissenter from the movement who refused to play along with the lie. Carriès did not carry the prettifying gene. He had an eye for the monstrous, for the contortions of nature and its abnormalities. If Carriès accepted the idea that the modern city is an extension of the natural world, he did so with the proviso that the extension was a malignant tumor.The dissent from the lie looked like this:
"In an act of shockingly retro, sexist stupidity, a local unit of the Republican Party of Minnesota..."
"... has broadcast a new reason you should vote Republican: GOP women are hot, and Democratic women are not."
My comments, in list form:
1. That's not just some guy's viral video, that's an official Republican group? Uh, speaking of "Who Let the Dogs Out," put a leash on those guys. They're not helping.
2. Did they pay royalties to appropriate "She's a Lady" and "Who Let the Dogs Out"?
3. There's a certain silliness to picking (what you think are) the prettiest pictures of one party's women and (what you think are) the ugliest pictures of the other party's women, which might be enjoyable if it was just some YouTube foolery.
4. I liked the natural look of some of the Democratic women who were supposed to be unattractive. Most of the ugliness had to do with making faces. Good for them if they can make faces. It means they aren't botoxed into expressionlessness. Too much of the supposed prettiness of the Republican women came in the form of glitzy TV makeup and hair. I got really tired of looking at them. Too much sameness.
5. The old cliché GOP argument that your women are better than your opponents' women is offputting and sad.
6. Whoever made this video is ugly.
My comments, in list form:
1. That's not just some guy's viral video, that's an official Republican group? Uh, speaking of "Who Let the Dogs Out," put a leash on those guys. They're not helping.
2. Did they pay royalties to appropriate "She's a Lady" and "Who Let the Dogs Out"?
3. There's a certain silliness to picking (what you think are) the prettiest pictures of one party's women and (what you think are) the ugliest pictures of the other party's women, which might be enjoyable if it was just some YouTube foolery.
4. I liked the natural look of some of the Democratic women who were supposed to be unattractive. Most of the ugliness had to do with making faces. Good for them if they can make faces. It means they aren't botoxed into expressionlessness. Too much of the supposed prettiness of the Republican women came in the form of glitzy TV makeup and hair. I got really tired of looking at them. Too much sameness.
5. The old cliché GOP argument that your women are better than your opponents' women is offputting and sad.
6. Whoever made this video is ugly.
Eco-tourism, the guilt-trip.
Enough whale-watching for you. Time for urban cruise where the sightseeing is the pollution and blight of L.A. harbor.
(I must admit, I would enjoy this cruise. 1. Great photo-ops. 2. Reality is always beautiful/interesting from a safe distance.)
On a drizzly afternoon, a group of tourists huddle aboard the Christopher sipping wine, nibbling cookies and gazing out at the ocean just off Long Beach. Cameras dangle from their necks, ready to record the sights....What's with the wine and cookies? Shouldn't it be something more medicinal and off-flavored? Wheatgrass juice and vegan sushi, maybe.
Corroded metal shipping containers, belching smokestacks, trash-strewn waterways and oil islands highlight this harbor cruise.
The 2 1/2 -hour excursion takes passengers through a seascape short on the picturesque but full of concrete and metal -- a ride through exhaust-tinged air and past power plants, rusty warehouses and the Terminal Island prison that once housed Charles Manson and Al Capone.
(I must admit, I would enjoy this cruise. 1. Great photo-ops. 2. Reality is always beautiful/interesting from a safe distance.)
"In some of the pictures Lincoln's right eye looks half-asleep while the left stares wide-open."
"Cover half the face and each side looks like it belongs to a different person, one appearing downcast and uncertain, the other determined. A person speaking with him would in a sense face two Lincolns, one soft and exhausted, the other fiercely alert."
The radically asymmetrical face of Abraham Lincoln. What does it mean? Does it have something to do with the functioning — presumably high functioning — of the hemispheres of his brain? Generally, we find symmetrical faces beautiful, and this asymmetry may be the key reason we see Lincoln as ugly — though we excuse and even love his ugliness because we feel confident we are looking into the face of a great man. But let's think about asymmetry in faces of other human beings. Perhaps we should make a conscious effort to keep looking at the individuals who initially repel us. Is it Lincolnesque asymmetry? And what complexity and power of the mind lies behind that facial dualism?
And let's think about why — if my hypothesis is true — we feel drawn to the people who lack this complexity and power. It might be that we have evolved to feel comfortable interacting with simple, straightforward people, and our eyes and minds are trained by the long experience of the species to see those qualities in a symmetrical face. That is, our ancestors trusted people who were, in fact, trustworthy, and that is why they survived and produced descendants. The nonancestors of human history did not read faces so well and were betrayed by deceitful, duplicitous, wily people with powerful, complex brains.
Our ancestors were successful in their mistrust of 2-faced individuals. But that doesn't mean that today we should shun the ugly. Not all asymmetrics are dangerous. Some, perhaps, are the very greatest human beings — like Lincoln. Now that we are able to think consciously about what lies beneath the repellent face and now that we live an an ordered society, let's not pass up the opportunity to benefit from the minds that show an asymmetrical face to the world. Don't turn away from the ugly.
The radically asymmetrical face of Abraham Lincoln. What does it mean? Does it have something to do with the functioning — presumably high functioning — of the hemispheres of his brain? Generally, we find symmetrical faces beautiful, and this asymmetry may be the key reason we see Lincoln as ugly — though we excuse and even love his ugliness because we feel confident we are looking into the face of a great man. But let's think about asymmetry in faces of other human beings. Perhaps we should make a conscious effort to keep looking at the individuals who initially repel us. Is it Lincolnesque asymmetry? And what complexity and power of the mind lies behind that facial dualism?
And let's think about why — if my hypothesis is true — we feel drawn to the people who lack this complexity and power. It might be that we have evolved to feel comfortable interacting with simple, straightforward people, and our eyes and minds are trained by the long experience of the species to see those qualities in a symmetrical face. That is, our ancestors trusted people who were, in fact, trustworthy, and that is why they survived and produced descendants. The nonancestors of human history did not read faces so well and were betrayed by deceitful, duplicitous, wily people with powerful, complex brains.
Our ancestors were successful in their mistrust of 2-faced individuals. But that doesn't mean that today we should shun the ugly. Not all asymmetrics are dangerous. Some, perhaps, are the very greatest human beings — like Lincoln. Now that we are able to think consciously about what lies beneath the repellent face and now that we live an an ordered society, let's not pass up the opportunity to benefit from the minds that show an asymmetrical face to the world. Don't turn away from the ugly.
"Mickey, Mickey, no./Your lunacy can charm, yes./But you need a shirt."
I don't know. I find him adorable in his fugliness.
"Preservationists say the building... is a classic example of Brutalist architecture that should be maintained for future generations."
It's the Third Church of Christ, Scientist, in Washington, D.C., a couple blocks from the White House.
(Photo by kimberlyfaye.)
Should we preserve historically significant ugliness? Because we need negative examples, to know what to avoid? For contrast? Because history matters? Even the 1970s?
But the church won in the end:
Are you more convinced by the "make sense" argument — this place is bankrupting them — or by the passionate desire to demolish what is indisputably ugly?
Do you not worry that perhaps it is not ugly, not permanently ugly, and you are blinded by the aesthetics of our time? I remember, after graduating from art school in 1973, feeling quite sure the ornamentation on buildings like this was a hideous mistake and our cities needed to be stripped clean of it. Thank God I was powerless.
(Photo by kimberlyfaye.)
Should we preserve historically significant ugliness? Because we need negative examples, to know what to avoid? For contrast? Because history matters? Even the 1970s?
But the church won in the end:
"Historic preservation was never meant to be more important than the very people or purposes that buildings were meant to serve... This 1970s Brutalist-designed building ... would have bankrupted this congregation and forced it out of downtown where it had been for 100 years. That makes no sense."Sense! Should we make sense? How much more of history, art, and architecture would be lost to us now if we'd been making sense all these millennia?
Are you more convinced by the "make sense" argument — this place is bankrupting them — or by the passionate desire to demolish what is indisputably ugly?
Do you not worry that perhaps it is not ugly, not permanently ugly, and you are blinded by the aesthetics of our time? I remember, after graduating from art school in 1973, feeling quite sure the ornamentation on buildings like this was a hideous mistake and our cities needed to be stripped clean of it. Thank God I was powerless.
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