THE GOOD, THE BAD AND
THE UGLY….AND THE BEAUTIFUL ?
Act 2
A) BEAUTY AND THE GOOD : GREEK
ART AND PHILOSOPHY
• Early Greek period (before 5th century b. C.):
• Beauty always linked with other values
• No clear, autonomous view on beauty
• ‘kalos’ : ‘to kalon’ = what pleases, what incites
admiration…..not reserved for ‘beauty’
A) BEAUTY AND THE GOOD : GREEK
ART AND PHILOSOPHY
• Classical Greek art (5th century b.C. – 4th century b.C.) : the Greek hero
• Athens won the wars against the Persians
• Need to rebuild, need to show off their power
• ‘Point of view’-technique combined with rules/standards of composition
• Focus : the human body
• Searching for ideal beauty : expression of psycho-physical balance
• Beauty of human form and goodness of the spirit or soul
• = Kalokagathia
• The male hero
• Brave, balanced and nobel
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OhJKDqZgNXg
Archaïc period (650 – 500 b. C.) :
Kouros and Korè
Classical period (5th century – 4th
century b. C.)
Myron, Discus thrower, 450 b.
C.
Praxiteles, Aphrodite of
Knidos, 330 b. C.
A) BEAUTY AND THE GOOD : GREEK
ART AND PHILOSOPHY
• Hellenistic art (4th century b.C. – Roman period) :
• Alexander the Great : conquest of Asia
• Drama, energy, passion : Eastern influences
• Influence on Michelangelo (16th century, renaissance) (present
at excavation of Laocoön)
• Initiation of a style that would lead to baroque
Hellenistic period (4th century b. C. –
Roman period)
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C3cwGCezgSQ
Hellenistic period (4th century b. C. –
Roman period)
Laocoön and his sons,
A) BEAUTY AND THE GOOD : GREEK
ART AND PHILOSOPHY
• Greek philosophy and beauty : Plato
• Plato’s cave
• The real and illusion
• Ideas : several types
• Mathematical
A) BEAUTY AND THE GOOD : GREEK
ART AND PHILOSOPHY
• Greek philosophy and beauty : Plato
• Plato on beauty :
• Beautiful things : initiation of the search for true Beauty
• Starting point : desire and appetite
• Participation in idea of ‘the beautiful’
• Intellectual ascent : ‘Beauty’
• Formalist view (mathematical as stage in ascent) and
intellectualism
• The beautiful = the true = the good
Why these concepts of beauty,
true and good ?
A) BEAUTY AND THE GOOD : GREEK
ART AND PHILOSOPHY
• Greek philosophy and beauty : Pythagoras (6th century b.C.)
• Influenced Plato
• Definite – indefinite
• Tetraktys (equilateral triangle) : sacred ‘10’ (1,2,3 and 4)
• 1 = point
• 2 = line segment
• 3 = plane
• 4 = volume
Michelangelo, Floor plan of the hall of
old books of Laurenziana library
(Firenze), 16th century
Eye of God in Church of Sainte Croix
(Aubusson), between 13th and 17th century
Eye of Providence, symbol of
freemasons : part of the ‘Great Seal’ on
dollar bill
A) BEAUTY AND THE GOOD : GREEK
ART AND PHILOSOPHY
• Greek philosophy and beauty : Pythagoras (6th century b.C.)
• Influenced Plato
• Provided Plato with mathematical inspiration (mathematical ideas)
• Reality founded in opposites of indefinite - definite
• Table with 10 opposites starting with arithmetic and ending with
physical-ethical notions
• Plato associated his supreme idea of ‘the One’ with ‘the definite’,
‘the true’, ‘the good’ and ‘the beautiful’ (everything in right part
of the table of Pythagoras)
Indefinite – Definite
Even – Uneven
Multiplicity - Unity
Oblong – Square
Left – Right
Feminine – Male
Movement – Rest
Curved – Straight
Darkness – Light
Evil - Good
A) BEAUTY AND THE GOOD : GREEK
ART AND PHILOSOPHY
• Greek philosophy and beauty :
• Letting go of the material and physical world
• Climbing up intellectualy towards ‘Beauty’
• Plotinus (3rd century) : influenced by work of Plato
• The One
• Exitus and reditus
• Exitus : worldsoul, human soul, matter
• Reditus : striving to reunite oneself with ‘the One’
• The ugly ~ material world (matter associated with bad and wrong)
B) BAD AND UGLY IN GREEK CULTURE
• Greek tragedy : pain and suffering
• Origins :
• festivals for the god Dionysos
• 6th century b.C.
• 3 great Greek writers (5th century b.C.) :
• Aischylos
• Sophocles
• Euripides
• Tragedy :
• Tragos : ‘goat’ (God Dionysos and goatskin)
• Aeidein : ‘sing’
B) BAD AND UGLY IN GREEK CULTURE
• Greek tragedy : pain and suffering
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dSr6mP-zxUc
B) BAD AND UGLY IN GREEK CULTURE
• Greek tragedy : pain and suffering
• Aristotle : ‘catharsis’
• Cleansing of emotions
• Metamorphosis : transforming suffering, ugliness through
‘mimesis’ ( ~ imitation)
B) BAD AND UGLY IN GREEK CULTURE
• Greek tragedy : pain and suffering
• Nietzsche : Dionysian – Apollonian
• Book ‘Birth of tragedy’
• Dionysian : excessive, destructive and vital force
• Apollonian : shaping, forming and harmonic principle
• Eternal struggle between both
• Dionysian can only show itself masked by Apollonian
• Explanatory example : plastic bag scene ‘American beauty’
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6YSh8GaUjsI
B) BAD AND UGLY IN GREEK CULTURE
• Greek tragedy : pain and suffering
• Nietzsche : Dionysian – Apollonian
• ‘Amor fati’ : affirmation of suffering, pain and ugliness (possible ?)
• For Nietzsche this is what Greek tragedy did : synthesis of the Dionysian
and Apollonian
• Critique of western culture and civilization :
• No more affirmation of the irrational, vital and destructive Dionysian
• Redemption and salvation in stead of ‘amor fati’
• Fear of death is fear of life : hostility towards life
C) CONCLUSION : BEAUTY AND DEATH IN
GREEK CULTURE
• Beauty and ugliness in Greek culture : a ‘flight from death’
• Ideal ‘male hero’
• Kalokagathia as an ideal : transcending mortal man
• Refuge in eternal ideas and eternal soul (Plato) : abstract and eternal idea of
beauty
• Refuge in the abstraction of the mathematical : mathematical ‘divine’
• Denigration of physical and material aspects of nature and life
• Reminders of death and vulnerability
• Transformation or metamorphosis of ugliness, suffering and pain :
redemption, salvation (Aristotle versus Nietzsche)
Embracing the totality of life as an impossible ‘salto
D) CHRISTIANITY : THE SACRED , THE
GOOD AND THE BEAUTIFUL
• The abjection of evil and ugliness : ‘sanctus’ not ‘sacer’
• Sacred – ‘sak’ as stem:
• Sacer : set apart, scandalous
• Sanctus : set apart, blessed
• Sacred as ‘sanctus’ in Christianity
• Georges Bataille :
• Christianity devided ‘the sacred’ in a ‘white sacred’ and a ‘black sacred’ (‘Theory of
religion’)
• ‘Black sacred’ (sacer) was thrown out of the sacred domain
• The fall of Lucifer : the devil
• ‘Sanctus’ remains : sacred = good = true = beautiful (basis of classical aesthetics)
• Linked to ‘light’, ‘right’ (heaven depicted on Christ’s right hand), unity of Father-Son-Holy
Spirit (influence of Pythagoras, Plato and Plotinus)
D) CHRISTIANITY : THE SACRED , THE
GOOD AND THE BEAUTIFUL
• The Middle Ages : The good – the beautiful – the true (the eternal ‘sacred’)
• Churches
• Early period (4th century – 10th century)
• Following Roman style and form : mosaic, Christ as an ‘imperial figure’
• Basilica as church building
• Romanesque style (10th century – 12th century)
• Last judgment at the entrance
• Heaven : good and beautiful
• Hell : evil and ugly
• Gothic style (12th century – 15th/16th century)
• House of God = house of light
• Influence of Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite (5th-6th century)
• Technical enhancements to make big windows
Early Christianity
Romanesque style
Romanesque style
Romanesque style
Romanesque style
Gothic style
E) RENAISSANCE : BEAUTY AND
UGLINESS
• History
• Rebirth of art and culture of Greek-Roman era
• Started in Italy:
• Why ?
• Ancient ruins
• Cities : trade (wealth)
• Multiple courts : dukes, counts and the pope
• Early renaissance : 1400-1500
• Central city : Florence
• High renaissance : 1500-1600
• Central city : Rome
E) RENAISSANCE : BEAUTY AND
UGLINESS
• Cultural characteristics : Changing worldview and rise of individualism
• Perspective/viewpoint in painting (15th century) :
• Gave rise to individualism
• Distance to the world : viewpoint = artistic stance
= scientific stance
• Portraits
• Individual artistic genius : ‘uomo universale'
• Changing worldview :
• ‘Natura’ :
• Middle Ages = ‘creation’ (belonging)
• Modernity = ‘nature’ (loss of belonging)
• ~ perspective : Flemish Primitives and perspective
• Introduction of landscape in 16th century painting
• Mechanistic view of ‘nature’
• Quantization, measurable
• Scientific revolution of 17th-18th century
Masaccio, Trinity, 1425-1428 :
First perspective painting
Jan Van Eyck, The Virgin of Chancellor
Rolin, 1435, 66 x 62 cm
Albrecht Altdorfer, Battle of Issus, 1529
Joachim Patinir, Landscape with
flight to Egypt, 1516-1517
Leonardo da Vinci, Virgin of the rocks,
1483-1486
E) RENAISSANCE : BEAUTY AND
UGLINESS
• Cultural characteristics : in line with Greek art and philosophy
• Proportion : Fibonacci sequence and golden ratio
• Fibonacci : 0, 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34, 55, 89, 144, 233, 377, 610, 987, 1597, 2584,
4181, 6765, 10946, ...
• Golden ratio = Phi = 1.6180339887…
• Used in Greek architecture, sculpture
• Employed by renaissance architects and painters
E) RENAISSANCE : BEAUTY AND
UGLINESS
• Cultural characteristics : in line with Greek art and philosophy
• Marsilio Ficino (1433-1499) : neoplatonism
• Leader of Academy in Florence : teachings of Plato
• Influences painters, sculptors and architects
• Focus on beauty in creation (not proportion)
• Ideas :
• In line with Plotinus :
• ‘The One’ = ‘God’…overflowing and resulting in….
• Hierarchy of levels in being
• Ascension of eternal soul (placed between God and sensual world) towards God
• Traces of supernatural beauty in natural beauty in sensual world
• Traces = origin/starting point of ascension to God
• Tool of ascension : Platonic love
• Art imitating nature (≠ Plato) but with a focus on climbing towards ideal beauty
(influence Plotinus)
Leon Battista Alberti, Santa Maria
Novella, 1458-1470
Leon Battista Alberti, San’ Andrea, 1472-1492
Palladio, Il Redentore, 1577 Palladio, Villa ‘La Rotonda’, 1550-1567
Titian, Sacred and profane love, 1514
Botticelli, Birth of Venus, 1485
Giorgione, Sleeping Venus, 1510
Titian, Venus of Urbino, before 1538
Donatello, David, 1430s
Michelangelo Buonarotti, David, 1504
Michelangelo, Pietà, 1499
Michelangelo, Sistine Chapel, 1510
Michelangelo, Final
judgment, 1537-1541
E) RENAISSANCE : BEAUTY AND
UGLINESS
• Ugliness and the bad : the old woman
• Middle Ages : old age – decay (physical and moral)
• Ugly old age : sign of inner evil
• Woman as evil (Greeks and Bible) ~ ugly old age
• Renaissance : favoring of adolescence
• Youth, energy, beauty, passion, agitated loving, fighting, future
• Consequence : old age negatively defined : no longer beauty, energy…..
Jacob Bos, The
senile old woman,
1560
Giorgione, The old
woman, 1508
Quinten Metsijs, The ugly
duchess, 1525-1530
Lucas Cranach, Fountain of youth, 1546
Wizard of Oz (1939)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ni4aFytenj4
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WnXAl1ntt_4
Snow white : transformation
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gpWfgLTRPGo
Drag me to hell : Ms Ganush
