Film Review ~ 'Ugly Beauty'.

'The most beautiful things in the world are also the most useless'~ John Ruskin.

'All art is quite useless' ~ Oscar Wilde

(Box of Broadcast Episodes)

Tuesday 19th March 2019.

Documentary in which art critic Waldemar Januszczak argues that beauty is still to be found in modern art.

The subject is relevant to my ongoing research and interest. With reference also to my recent HAD118 Art History Essay on John Ruskin and Robert Smithson, 'Ruskin to the landscape today'; the natural processes of transformation and decay and the use of mixed media and materials.

Has todays art lost it's beauty? Is beauty important in art?

The problem with beauty is that it's hard to describe. My encounter with what I define as beautiful will be different from everyone else's. Art after all is about diversity, a way of seeing things anew. And yet, it is often the beauty we perceive in work's of art from the past or a different culture that makes them so compelling. Beauty is subjective and depends on cultural context. The episode outlines Waldemar Januszczak's vision of aspects of beauty, which include death, motherhood, texture, emptiness and kitsch. Beauty' in art by no means should determine whether it is 'good', therefore, it isn't very useful in defining art. Perhaps a word perceived through intuition, undefinable and of a mysterious nature would be more suitable.

In the episode, showcasing reality, as it is; art stimulates social, materialistic, environmental and humanitarian awareness. Art embellishes reality as seen in Hirst's, which questions the existence and mortality of ourselves; of love, life and death. In this sense the world does not exist for a higher, affirmative purpose. We are not infinite, the works of Hirst stimulates thought and emotion. Is this then seen as 'bad' beauty? Life, after all is a short, meaningless existence. Or perhaps the notion that beauty has been extended to reflect the world as we know it, not as we would like it to be.

Work's of art don't have to be beautiful, but we must acknowledge that aesthetic judgement plays a large part in the reception of art. However, it is possible to produce art containing both: Beautiful content and a strong message. In the episode, Januszczak clearly believes that modern art is there to touch the soul: He just does not believe it must be a comforting touch.