Elephant of the Celebes Not a Pretty Picture? (was Spending time on the ugly)
Bill Palmer
<artemu...@worldnet.att.net> writes:
[...]
>
> Ugliness is something of an aesthetic judgement,
Much of it is, certainly. Lots of failed art
seems to result from artists wanting to paint
"beautiful" pictures in the style of older
generations, a style that has worn out, as
far as its being able to interest many viewers.
On the other hand, I think surrealism is interesting,
because the leading surrealists often created works
that are arguably quite ugly and still very successful.
Look at "Elephant of the Celebes" by Max Ernst. It's
one of the more famous examples of surrealist art.
Who will call this a beautiful picture? Yet, perhaps
because of the way the artist tapped into unconscious
forces, it is a very powerful picture despite a sharp
departure from classical ideals of beauty. That
is not to say that NO surrealist works reflect
the classical standards of beauty, yet many of
them violate those standards in ways that would
likely traumatize famous artists of older
generations.
hence all my examples
>did not involve direct and real encounters with actual pain and danger
>on the part of the participants. Naturally nobody wants to really
face
>injury and death, but on the other hand people do seem to have a
certain
>tendency to want to show they can witness rather horrible simulated or
>real events where pain and injury and death are inflicted on others.
>
> Ugliness is an interesting notion. Like "violence" it has a lot
of not
>necessarily very obvious cultural baggage.
Sure. There are all sorts of prejudices involved
in pronouncing people and things "ugly". Take
spiders for instance. Many humans consider them
ugly. Why? Because they eat other insects?
Not really. Many insects eat other insects.
Traditionally, humans have considered lady
bugs pretty, if not beautiful. Yet, why is
an aphid-eating lady bug any less ugly than
a fly-eating spider--and, for that matter, why
is not a spider-paralyzing wasp considered
as ugly as its unfortunate spider victim?
We humans are full of silly prejudices about
what is and is not "ugly".
Further, beauty in humans has often had
racial overtones. Groups of people tend to
see other racial groups as ugly. Look at
the Chinese--when they did not see many
white people, they considered the "devils"
incredibly ugly.
Even whites of blonde and dark hair often
express what is really a racial prejudice
about red-haired people, simply because
red hair is less common. I think human
cattle need to realize it's time to open
their eyes and to question their own foolish
prejudices.
Teenage nitwits of both sexes will often
maintain that males who are not as
handsome as Leonardo Di Caprio (sp.?) or
females not as beautiful Pamela Anderson
Lee are "ugly." Yet, looking at it from
another standpoint, what is more "ugly"
than an ignorant, bigoted, tv-nurtured,
prating little half-mind which has absorbed
nothing about standards of human beauty and
worth other than those which are basically
whorish in nature (i.e., if you don't
want to crawl in bed with it, it's "ugly")?
"And a tawdry cheapness shall outlast
their days." --Pound.
It's like a situation over in a writing newsgroup.
An imbecile (who has been going around telling
how "we" don't pay attention to "Bill Palmer")
posted some sentimental dreck about a homeless
woman. Nobody in the group in question had the
guts to tell the pretentious lowbrow in question
what a pile of mawkish rubbish she had tried
to foist on misc.writing readers.
Well, as an experiment, *I* reposted he "prose
gem" over in the surrealist group (along with
the Max Jacobquote that--for intelligent minds--
devastated the tissue of tripe by of the writing
group poseur). Anyway, an alt.surrealist
poster IMMEDIATELY spotted the passage in
question as maudlin drivel and said so. You
see, HE did not know (or care) that it was
written by a "cultural leader" of a certain
writing newsgroup.
I think a few people need to wake up. When
things get to the point that horribly-written
twaddle is allowed to pass in an un-excoriated
condition because it is written by a "popular
newsgroup person" we are all in trouble.
You know what's wrong with some writing news-
groups? We have too many "Pier One Import
people" who want to be successful writers
so they can be "Laura Ashley people."
All our writing and prose groups are fast becoming big,
tasteless, over-stuffed sofas for mataphorical fat
butts and pretentious middle-brows of the wired world.
We have too many politically-correct newsgroup
cattle who don't have the backbone to call a chunk
of dreck a chunk of dreck because its a maudlin
sketch about a homeless woman and who on earth
would be mean enough to attack something like
that? *I* would, because the article was
poorly-written rubbish, but I preferred
instead to demolish it by juxtaposing it
with the quotation from Max Jacob. Of
course, I had to take it over to alt.
surrealism before anyone "got it"...human
cattle human cattle human cattle--
Bill Palmer
alt.genius.bill-palmer
For example, cutting
>somebody's body open is "violent" unless it is done by a "qualified
>medical team" as a part of a "surgical intervention" (or
>whatever....medical anthropology is beyond me, I prefer actual savages
>whenever possible).
>
> Anyway, as far as I'm concerned, "ugliness" and "violence" point
to
>some interesting aspects of human cultural manipulations of the
inchoate
>facts of nature, and I think they are well worth looking into.
>
>--
>Then Pallas breath'd in Tydeus' sonne --
> to render whom supreame
>To all the Greekes at all his parts she cast a hoter beame
>On his high mind, his body fild with much superior might
>And made his compleate armor cast a farre more complete light.
>
>(Chapman's Homer: Iliad, Fifth Book, first lines)
>
>............Pete