insite
: : kevan nitzberg
the
many faces of beauty on the web
What
is the relationship of art to beauty? Beauty in art does not always follow a well
marked path. To start, there is of course, the beauty we are all familiar with
- Raphael depicts a very natural Madonna at the US National Gallery of Art site.
http://www.nga.gov/collection/gallery/gg20/gg20-main1.html
merryn
(1962), by English sculptor Barbara Hepworth conveys the mystery and suppleness
of human form as it transcends the alabaster of which it is made. You'll find
Hepworth at the National Museum of Women in the Arts website http://www.nmwa.org/legacy/bios/bhepwort.htm.
You can also check out some of the artist's quotes at http://www.bemorecreative.com/one/2021.htm
The above works
reflect an idealized view of beauty, experienced as an intrinsic part of the message
conveyed. If only it was always that simple. Superficial attractiveness cannot
of course, convey the inhumanity and devastation that war brings. See Francisco
Goya's (1814) the shootings of may third, 1808 at artchive.com.
http://www.artchive.com/artchive/G/goya/may_3rd.jpg.html
guernica,
Pablo Picasso's 1937 masterpiece is no less powerful and evocative due to the
absence of beauty as an essential ingredient. The use of stylized and contorted
images of people and animals dramatically portrayed in stark, diagonal planes
of light transmits enormous quantities of emotion and energy, forcefully conveying
the senselessness of war. The painting has of course, spawned volumes of literature,
and there's plenty online as well:
http://www.rowan.edu/philosop/clowney/Aesthetics/beauty.htm
Equally
disturbing is David Alfaro Siqueiros's echo of a scream, also 1937.
http://www.pbs.org/ringsofpassion/anguish/siqueiros.html
Russian
born Pavel Tchelitchew's work, hide and seek [cache-cache] ( 1940-42) presents
another upsetting tableau. Here the children's game manifests troubling, psychological
connotations. A nightmarish landscape populated with "the wailing ghosts of absent
children" trying to engage the attention of a diminutive, centralized figure.
Tchelitchew is featured at artnet.com.
http://www.artnet.com/Magazine/features/mmendelsohn/mendelsohn8-27-98.asp
We "live in a
time when art is often indistinguishable from perversity" according to Roger Kimball,
in his article, art without beauty. Kimball references radical approaches
to the creation of images that suggest religious defamation (Andreas Serrano)
and sexually abusive behavior ( Robert Mappelthorpe).
http://www.idea-tr.com/okumalar/kimball/art_without_beauty.htm
Beyond
the wider definition of what constitutes art, an additional difficulty that manifests
itself is that the concept of beauty is highly subjective, personal and abstract.
So says Kim Walker at freespeech.org.
http://www.freespeech.org/kimthinks/Philosophy/Aesthetics.htm
Beauty is cultural
as well. There is African art to consider, which can be found on Yale University's
site:
http://www.yale.edu/ynhti/curriculum/units/1998/3/98.03.02.x.html
The Sowei mask
of Sierre Leone and Liberia is used to "display and celebrate Mende ideals of
female beauty and virtue" which includes good health and full-bodiness (as shown
in the neck creases carved into the mask), contemplativeness and restraint evidenced
by lowered eyes, and a smooth, broad forehead that displays nobility and intelligence.
Virginia University discusses The Exhibition - African Art: Aesthetics and Meaning,
where the mask image above comes from. Look for the page titled exhibition
at: http://www.lib.virginia.edu/dic/exhib/93.ray.aa/
In
Japan prior to the arrival of western influence in the 1870's, no distinction
was made between fine art and craft, and the best translation for a term that
approximates art is katachi , whose literal translation of 'form and design' implies
that art is "synonymous with living, functional purpose and spiritual simplicity."
Check the article on japanese aesthetics, wabi sabi, and the tea ceremony
at
http://www.art.unt.edu/ntieva/artcurr/japan/
Like
beauty, the Western European concept of 'art' is not culturally universal. The
Polynesians of Tikopia island refer to non-symbolic decoration on utilitarian
objects as fakarakei, and have no inclusive concept analagous to our 'art'. In
India, the Sanskrit word for Art is Kala, indicating a "pleasant human activity
which is characterized by close observation, calculation, contemplation and clear
expression." Wilfred van Damme asks do non-western cultures have words for
art? at:
http://www.arts.usyd.edu.au/Arts/departs/philos/ssla/papers/vandamme.html
Looking back
at the 'aesthetic soup' explored in this article, it would seem that there are
so many precepts involved in arriving at a concrete definition of what, in fact,
constitutes beauty and its affiliation to art, that no one set of parameters would
ever be up to accomplishing the task.
an
offering
Among those artists who still value the concept of beauty in
art is Dale Chihuly, noted for his glass sculpture creations. His glass works
defy all of the old master rules in that the beauty to be found in these heroically
scaled, extraordinarily fragile works of art, is derived from the pure pleasure
of flights of fancy intrinsic in their suggestive, yet non regimented, forms.
Reliance on 'real
world' imitation and pathos gives way to exotic, other world entities that seem
to explode into our own space. The size and nature of the material being worked
precluded the possibility of a single person engaged alone creating them. The
making of these sculptures took place in factories around the world.
http://www.chihuly.com/essays/specessay.html
Kevan
Nitzberg is an art educationalist and Minnesota Educator of the Year, 2000. To
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