What is Ugliness?

Umberto Eco's book "On Ugliness" is a historical anthology of ugliness...

Beauty in the classical world was defined as the "organic" relation between the parts to the whole... it feels "musical"... Ugliness was the absence of it, but never denied in the form of monsters and aberrations of nature meant to convey "excess" than "balance". Cyclops with one eye, etc.

Eco then documents how with Xt. with their stoic influence, nothing was ugly per se and everything was part of the divine plan... etc.

This book muses over the question, is ugliness what we repress inside? Or do we repress because it is ugly?, etc.


The book is available here and full of paintings that demonstrate [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]


Synopsis:

Quote :

"This book is the follow up to the previous volume, "On Beauty". Apparently beauty and ugliness are concepts that imply each other, and by ugliness we usually mean the opposite of beauty, so all we need do is define the first to understand the nature of the second. But the various manifestations of ugliness over the centuries are richer and more unpredictable than is commonly thought. The anthological quotations and the extraordinary illustrations in this book lead us on a surprising journey among the nightmares, terrors, and loves of almost three thousand years, where acts of rejection go hand in hand with touching gestures of compassion, and the rejection of deformity is accompanied by decadent ecstasies over the most seductive violations of all classical canons.Among demons, madmen, horrible enemies, and disquieting presences, among horrid abysses and deformities that verge on the sublime, among freaks and the living dead, we discover a vast and often unsuspected iconographic vein. So much so that, on gradually encountering in these pages the ugliness of nature, spiritual ugliness, asymmetry, disharmony, disfigurement, and the succession of things sordid, weak, vile, banal, random, arbitrary, coarse, repugnant, clumsy, horrendous, vacuous, nauseating, criminal, spectral, witchlike, satanic, repellent, disgusting, unpleasant, grotesque, abominable, odious, crude, foul, dirty, obscene, frightening, abject, monstrous, hair-raising, ugly, terrible, terrifying, revolting, repulsive, loathsome, fetid, ignoble, awkward, ghastly and indecent, the first foreign publisher to see this book exclaimed: 'How beautiful ugliness is!'"

Small slideshow of the book:

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Eco's lecture:

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wowman wrote:

"In fact what seems ugly, can be a complete  metamorphose, if faced with an open mind, even passion at times has to contain a certain type of ugliness to allow its purest and absolute truth to be revealed."

The "has to contain" is a thorny issue... (pun unintended)

Although the wowman may have meant the opp. of what I am saying, generally thinking about that line and reading Eco, I recognized how the crucifixion of Christ, an event meant to shame him, an 'ugly' event was beautified...  to experience the "absolute truth" of it.

This kind of aesthetic thinking where it "must have" ugliness for the realization of "abs. truth" is part of how ugliness smuggled itself into modernity...

Mathias Grunewald, Crucifixion:

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To appreciate ugliness for its own sake...
How modern.

Man would turn it into beauty, just to tolerate it.

Everything created by God was divine...

The ugly is part of god's divine plan too.

Embracing the ugly and the passion of it, can lead one to realization of abs. truth.

Lyssa wrote:

This book muses over the question, is ugliness what we repress inside? Or do we repress because it is ugly?, etc.

I am not sure which comes first though...?

We repress what is ugly, because what is ugly was what was repressed in the first place because it was ugly...ad inf....

We discover beauty, as a juxtaposition.
Same applies for ugliness.

Know Thyself is not an easy path.

If beauty has no motive, and is "for its own sake"...just because....then why not ugliness?

Lyssa wrote:

Eco's lecture:

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Who would find this fat, ugly, old man seductive?
What female would fuck him?

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For his own sake, let us seduce this boy, and justify it later.
Just....Because.

Surrender to impulse.

S wrote:

Quote :

To appreciate ugliness for its own sake...
How modern.

Indeed, perfect imperfections.


Modernity for you is a crime, so be it. For me to move forward clinging to the past is like dragging a ball and chain. The prisoner is not the one who has committed a crime, but the one who clings to his crime and lives it over and over. We are all guilty of crime, and that crime is not living life to the full, you should try it sometime.

I don't give a fuck what's behind me, I don't have any regrets, the present is enough for me. Day by day.

Lyssa wrote:

Quote :

Although the wowman may have meant the opp. of what I am saying, generally thinking about that line and reading Eco, I recognized how the crucifixion of Christ, an event meant to shame him, an 'ugly' event was beautified...  to experience the "absolute truth" of it.

You're a spiritual gangster.  I don't trust you.  Your claws are always out.

reasonvemotion wrote:

Lyssa wrote:

Quote :

Although the wowman may have meant the opp. of what I am saying, generally thinking about that line and reading Eco, I recognized how the crucifixion of Christ, an event meant to shame him, an 'ugly' event was beautified...  to experience the "absolute truth" of it.

You're a spiritual gangster.  I don't trust you.  Your claws are always out.

Is that a compliment?

Ask her

Someone born beautiful can gradually become uglier if they don't live up to their potential... the lack of resistance to erosion has an ugly effect. Ugly as degeneration.  Does everything "ugly" need to be redeemed by the "beautiful" person for the "ugliness" to have its most meaning?  What's the effect of the "ugly" person giving meaning to traditional beauty and then painting a universal picture of beauty(with itself now included)?  How beauty is reworked by the ugly and vice versa.  An attitude can be ugly.

Quote :

This kind of aesthetic thinking where it "must have" ugliness for the realization of "abs. truth" is part of how ugliness smuggled itself into modernity...

And it now demands equal attention consequently reducing the meaning of the beautiful.

Nietzsche wrote:

All great, all beautiful things can never be common property

-TOTI

Nietzsche wrote:

Only the most spiritual human beings are permitted beauty, beautiful things: only in their case is benevolence not weakness. Pulchrum est paucorum hominum: the good is a privilege. On the other hand, nothing is more strictly forbidden them than ugly manners or a pessimistic outlook, an eye that makes ugly

-TOTI

Quote :

The Greeks indeed prayed: "Twice and thrice, everything beautiful!" Ah, they had their good reason to call on the Gods, for ungodly actuality does not furnish us with the beautiful at all, or only does so once! I mean to say that the world is overfull of beautiful things, but it is nevertheless poor, very poor, in beautiful moments, and in the unveiling of those beautiful things. But perhaps this is the greatest charm of life: it puts a gold- embroidered veil of lovely potentialities over itself, promising, resisting, modest, mocking, sympathetic, seductive. Yes, life is a woman!

- GS

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What is it that we long for at the sight of beauty? We long to be beautiful, we fancy it must bring much happiness with it. But that is a mistake.  

-HATH

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I often cast grim glances back at the most beautiful things which could not detain me-because they I could not detain me!"

- GS

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I want more and more to perceive the necessary characters in things as the beautiful-I shall thus be one of those who beautify things. Amor fati: let that henceforth be my love! I do not want to wage war with the ugly. I do not want to accuse, I do not want even to accuse the accusers. Looking aside, let that be my sole negation! And all in all, to sum up: I wish to be at any time hereafter only a yea-sayer!

- GS

"be one of those who beautify things"

Including himself?  Man as art. Or rather he finds himself to be beautiful rather than seeking to be beautiful.

Its a type of beauty that is able to look past the most beautiful feelings and on that very account is "permitted" access to the rarest "unveiling" of beautiful things.  That one can keep distance from the most enticing beauty is itself a quality of the most beautiful types... The type with the most "intellectual character"

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Art weighs down the thinker's heart. We can understand how strong the metaphysical need2 is, and how even nature in the end makes it hard to leave it, from the way, even in a free spirit who has rid himself of everything metaphysical, the highest effects of art easily produce a reverberation of a long-silenced, or even broken metaphysical string. At a certain place in Beethoven's Ninth Symphony, for example, he might feel that he is floating above the earth in a starry dome, with the dream of immortality in his heart; all the stars seem to glimmer around him, and the earth seems to sink ever deeper downwards.
If he becomes aware of this condition, he may feel a deep stab in his heart and sigh for the man who will lead back to him the lost beloved, be she called religion or metaphysics. In such moments, his intellectual character is being tested.

- HATH

To what degree is the ugly dishonest in its approach to beauty.

wowman wrote:

You're a spiritual gangster.  I don't trust you.  Your claws are always out.

Hi wowman; I would say welcome back, but you never left?

Its too tiresome to restir past issues, but the one who exposed my pvt. msgs. twice, who nearly exposed satyr's pvt. msg., and who tried to expose my pic., was You, not I.

And the one untrustworthy is me??

You've got to think about it.
The devil is in your own mind. guffaw guffaw


Anddddd, I always go solo. I'm a swashbuckling, rum drinking, peg legged, vile cussing, eye patched pirate...

I'm no gang-ster, I'm a Jolly Roger...

Perpetual wrote:

Is that a compliment?

For sure; she can't help it.

She likes me despite herself. ; )


You can tell from how she changed her initial reply

"Nothing so intense. A bit of a yawn really."

to

"Ask her."


If only I would cross over to her side of the army and put down satyr and the other men here... I would be her best friend.

If only I would be meek, eat humble pie, treat every one, esp. her as my equal while I'm still on this side of the army... I would be her delight.


Anytime she opens her mouth like just now with her Paranoia that I'm always ganging up on her... I have no choice but to think her crazy.
I find her unstable.

My pic. of her is someone going to bed thinking, "if only I could have access to Lyssa's and Satyr's inbox..."  

like those hollywood female journalists who climb up poles even to get the inside scoop... HER! claws are out, she wants to scratch and expose the man and woman behind the mask...
if she could only get her hands on some proof to what "she's known All Along"...  

like her inner conviction that judgement day will come...  she's never felt so right in her bones abt. something...

if only she could expose the matrix, and the conspiracy ring...

Its hilarious, but its also unhealthy paranoia. projecting your insecurities onto another.

Plus she's so ashamed of her own desire to want to, that she's embarassed on my behalf, when I choose to be submissive.  

She resents me for it, like if I could only live upto her image of the female ideal...  "civil, wanting the man to surrender first, 'you surrender first and I will give you all the delights', female orgasm as a female Right, receiving appreciation for everything I do like a relationship is maintaining a tally book, placing my hope in god and surrendering to jesus than man, taking to task anyone who dares to act like god and sermonizing them on humility, and having a good time chit-chatting about life pleasantly..."

If only she could have me this way... I would be her trustworthy friend...

Neo wrote:

Ask her

You're funny. I'm giving your words a month's place in my sig., feel good now.

wowman wrote:

Modernity for you is a crime, so be it. For me to move forward clinging to the past is like dragging a ball and chain. The prisoner is not the one who has committed a crime, but the one who clings to his crime and lives it over and over. We are all guilty of crime, and that crime is not living life to the full, you should try it sometime.

Technically, the 'now', the 'present' doesn't exist as our consciousness is always one step behind, there's always a lag in catching up... consciousness is always a looking back.

Quote :

I don't give a fuck what's behind me, I don't have any regrets, the present is enough for me. Day by day.

I doubt it; you yourself claimed you are unable to trust anyone, because of past negative experiences; you still cling to the past.
Some people try to escape from this or try to deceive themselves that they are done with the past,,, maybe. But the past may not be done with them.
Its why knowing yourself is understanding your past.

perpetualburn wrote:

Someone born beautiful can gradually become uglier if they don't live up to their potential... the lack of resistance to erosion has an ugly effect. Ugly as degeneration.  Does everything "ugly" need to be redeemed by the "beautiful" person for the "ugliness" to have its most meaning?  What's the effect of the "ugly" person giving meaning to traditional beauty and then painting a universal picture of beauty(with itself now included)?  How beauty is reworked by the ugly and vice versa.  An attitude can be ugly.

Thanks, that's a nice question, 'what's an ugly attitude?'... it prompts me to think...

A request. Pls. source your N. quotes so I can look them up if I need to.

Lyssa wrote:

Quote :

She likes me despite herself.

  
 


Know Yourself .....perhaps you can see yourself more clearly in all your folly.

To me, ugliness is unintelligence. Only intelligent creatures are beautiful to me. And it is rare, or never, that a beautiful mind accompanies a beautiful body and face to mask it.

Usually a beautiful face masks an ugly brain. I have not found exceptions to this rule, especially online.

People who are very intelligent, and therefore beautiful, are rare. And intelligence reflects a need, to know about the world, and survive within it. And also, to flourish.

and which one are you?

Find out for yourself.

Lyssa wrote

Quote :

I doubt it; you yourself claimed you are unable to trust anyone, because of past negative experiences; you still cling to the past.

Did I?  Do tell, what were these past negative experienceS, (plural I note), so I guess you wont have too much trouble producing at least a couple, for us to read, although I cant guarantee it will be interesting to all and sundry.  Shall I give you a little insight. Imagine the steam when hot meets cold.   

Lyssa wrote:

Quote :

You're funny. I'm giving your words a month's place in my sig., feel good now.

Hoping familiarity will breed contempt?

Spiritual gangster, nah ........petty trickster.


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Wowman wrote:

Lyssa wrote:

I doubt it; you yourself claimed you are unable to trust anyone, because of past negative experiences; you still cling to the past.

Did I?  Do tell, what were these past negative experienceS, (plural I note),

I meant 'whatever' led to your whole misanthropy.

wowman wrote:

Hoping familiarity will breed contempt?

Yes, I am the evil Satan trying to tempt you into negativity and its not you who vampires on emotions reducing everything into a personal issue,,

and its not you who is not miserable clinging to the past, but its the other who needs to get a life living in the now...

You are not one bit crazy...

If I'm not moving all your non-sensical personal remarks to another thread, its because they stand as a good example to what is ugliness.

You are free to your inversions and everything else you want to say...  I'll take it without a word back.

I'll try to be as pleasant to you as I would be to a mental patient... does one last out at a mental patient and feed their persecution mania? No.

But there's a limit to my patience.

All I ask of you is just try to Appear normal, and maybe quit while you are still ahead and can pull that appearance....  

Now give it a rest already, and stay on topic.[/quote]

Æon wrote:

To me, ugliness is unintelligence.  Only intelligent creatures are beautiful to me.  And it is rare, or never, that a beautiful mind accompanies a beautiful body and face to mask it.

Usually a beautiful face masks an ugly brain.  I have not found exceptions to this rule, especially online.

People who are very intelligent, and therefore beautiful, are rare.  And intelligence reflects a need, to know about the world, and survive within it.  And also, to flourish.

How ease leads to atrophy.

Ugliness, a lower quality of symmetry, forces the mind to compensate.
Stress producing growth.
By compensating the mind succeeds or fails.
Success increases the possibility of beauty, as it releases energies from the compensating duty and applies them towards ordering.

Beauty, a higher quality of symmetry, may result in comfort.
Comfort leads to atrophy, because need and only need produces action.
atrophy deteriorates the order present....

And so the cycles of man correspond to the cycles of civilizations.
Rome fell because when the Empire had attained a certain level of power, in relation to its neighbors, the available challengers, it became complacent, comfortable,...decadent.
Hedonism is part of the stage of decay.
This also applies to the present Super Power, the U.S.

Hedonism is a squandering of energies, once they are taken for granted, have become superfluous...easy to attain.
Materialism is part of this.
This also applies to relationships, and sexuality.
When sex has become superfluous, when no risk, no cost, is associated with it, and no benefit besides the orgasmic release of energies, then it begins to lose its value.
The participants now seek to indulge in extremes, using hyperbole to maintain interest....exploration ensures, as the mind loses focus on the object/objective sexuality evolved towards, and the focus becomes the mechanism itself.
Like an animal. An animal does not know why it is fornicating, why it it goes into a seasonal sexual frenzy. It cannot project further than the immediate, the present...to consider the consequences...as in offspring.
It acts on impulse, a consciousness contained within a shallow perceptual-event-horizon.
It functions of spontaneity, n a 'just because' motive.
No introspection (self-consciousness), no imagination (perception of future probabilities).

With humans the same effect is produced by sheltering.
It's a form of sheltering, numbing, retardation...a regression back to a primal, infantile state.
Because the costs/benefits are overseen, as with the market system, the mind can focus on the immediate...the pleasure itself...for its own sake....like an animal focuses on the impulse o release its energies, feeling pleasure as well, I'm sure, in the release of pressurized libidinal forces.
Sex loses its severity....it becomes a toy, a pastime, a hobby, an obsession, a hedonistic practice for its own sake.
The cost/benefit reduced to the moment of sensation.

This is decadence.
Rome suffered the consequences when it was infected by the Judeo-Christian virus that further weakened it....resulting in its inevitable demise.

The cycle repeats.

What artistic value could there ever be in portraying something as ugly as this??
There is no beauty here, no divinity.
This isn't a god, this is a man. His body emaciated, his flesh torn, his face deformed with pain.
What great suffering he must have endured.
I don't admire this man, I pity him, I feel his pain.
To be a god, and to be placed into a filthy human body, and then to suffer unimaginable pain, and to have your carcass hang for all to see, humiliated and torn.
All for what? ....

... for me?

Oh...

What's the title of this painting again?

AH!

R wrote:

Quote :

   Did I?  Do tell, what were these past negative experienceS, (plural I note),

L wrote:

Quote :

I meant 'whatever' led to your whole misanthropy.

Now that we have that one cleared up, do try and keep to the facts and I will come on like a pack of goodie two shoes and agree and agree and agree, the emollient for your deep unconscious demands.

Next.