Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, as we all know, and what that means is merely that what appeals to one may not appeal to another. Subjectivity. Etc. We’ve all heard that at some point in our lives. And it’s true, at the risk of making beauty arbitrary without suggesting that there are objective standards – compare Venice to Trenton, New Jersey, and you’ll see what I mean. And we find beauty in many different things and what we find beautiful is as varied as we are. Something can be aesthetically beautiful. That’s fancy talk for “it’s pretty.” Without an objective beauty, the term risks becoming arbitrary. A Picasso painting, for example, can be pleasing to the eye without really making sense, simply because of its arrangement of shapes and colors. And screaming animals depicted in forms of bloody black-and-white horror overseen by an evil-eye and a ghost on top of a dead soldier with stigmata are so delightful. Oh, Picasso, you cur! How fun!
The most brutal attack a Spanish Frenchman ever inflicted upon a Nazi.
It certainly isn’t for everyone, Picasso’s style, and I’ve actually heard someone say, “A kid could paint something like that…” Which is interesting, considering the paintings Picasso did as a kid…
…makes the stuff your mother hung on the fridge look like a big pile of shit…
Even your Dragonball Z drawings.*
Maybe something less … Picasso-y? For the sake of whatever this argument is, I’ll post a similar painting done in a different style, a different way to communicate ideas. And that’s realism as in, ‘what it looks like when I look at it.’ This was a revolutionary concept. Art historians and Jacopo della Quercia know that Caravaggio was an extremely influential painter and had many imitators. He also killed a pimp, spread profane rumors about his rivals, and the pope sentenced him to Death. By beheading. He was still a successful painter. Here’s his Death of Mary …
Originally commisioned by the Carmalite Sisters in Trastevere, it was rejected after a rumor spread that Caravaggio had used a prostitute as a model for the Madonna. Seriously.
What is the difference between Caravaggio’s realistically painted depiction of a fictional account or Picasso’s exaggerated depiction of a real event? Caravaggio used models and costumes. Picasso had no models (only lots and lots of wives) and used only his imagination. They both convey the same feelings and have a lot of things in common, despite, you know, one looking like the work of a kid…
His career would make more sense if he was Benjamin Button.
You can even find beauty in the most unlikely of places. Hell, for example, is a beautiful place to take in the sights, traveling on an unexpected adventure with Dante and his guide virgil, through rivers of sinners, winds of sinners, forests of sinners, the city of Dis (contains sinners) and we can travel to the heights of paradiso with Dante’s sweet sweet Beatrice. There is beauty in both journeys, to heaven and hell.
Tonight’s nightmare brought to you by Hieronymus Bosch!
One of the most beautiful moments in classical tragedy takes place in Sophocles’ play Antigone. You might be familiar with Sophocles. He’s that guy whose play Oedipus Rex led to Freud’s creation of the Oedipus Complex, cementing the status of Sophocles’ masterpiece as a play forever remembered as, ‘The one where the guy fucks his mom.’ I understand completely. The guy fucked his mom! Besides, he could have gotten away with it. His nobility was disgust in himself. Now in Sophocles’ true masterpiece Antigone, the titular Antigone was a poor woman who went against the rules of law, the advice of her sister, and against the natural god damn biological instinct for self-preservation by openly defying a king in an era where that was very much frowned upon for the sake of her brother Polyneices’ honor. Just because her family honor was insulted, she destroys the King’s nobility and claim to the moral highground, which leads to a whole bunch of suicidin’. And she does it with a fierce kindness and appreciation for life. Murder by kindness. It’s what Polyneices would’ve wanted.
Considered the archetypal strong female character. Antigone was such a bad-ass only the strongest of men could play the role. And also, all the female roles.
What is beauty though, to me? Real talk: Beauty is the first time you felt the thrill of holding hands, the first kiss when your heart skipped a beat and your stomach fluttered, when you saw a shooting star for the first time, a speck, a meteorite dissolves away. Chopin and piano music, whiskey and wine. And art.
For your patient waiting, I give you: the most tasteful depiction of a nun’s orgasm you will ever see.
The [beauty] of a picture lives by companionship, expanding and quickening in the eyes of the sensitive observer. It dies by the same token. It is therefore a risky, and unfeeling act, to send it out into the world.
Rothko, 1958, Committing Art.
*I apologize to any Dragonball Z fan-art aficionados out there I may have offended.
If you enjoyed this essay, stick around and check out some of material that’s twice as long with half the jokes. If you liked this article, leave a comment or let me know on Twitter @MrBrandonNobles, where I occasionally say stuff about things.
brandon the writer | author & staff writer for sir swag 