On Ugliness
Umberto Eco
Rizzoli (2007)
By Nicholas Nocketback

Finally! A Set of Books That Both The Prom and Drag Queen Can Get Excited About.

What’s ugly to you? Shrek? Virginia Tech’s school colors? Your Wife? Pedophilia? Alex Trebek? We can all argue about the things that we find ugly from architecture to pop-music to Kraft macaroni and cheese. Lucky for us, though, Italian novelist/philosopher Umberto Eco has simmered and reduced this idea of ugliness into one concise volume. You can find this hardbound piece in the art section of your bookstore but it’s so much more: philosophy, sociology, history, and popular culture are only a few.
It begins with the question of ugliness in the classical world and our stereotyped image of the Greek world. “…the status of Aphrodite or Apollo that, thanks to the whiteness of the marble, portray an idealized beauty. However, ugliness exists, therefore, only in the sensible order as an aspect of the imperfection of the physical universe compared to the ideal world.” So basically, what we see in the idealized, romanticized statues in our museums, show not the imperfections and disorder of the physical world. Take a look at that Elle magazine again. Look at the photographs (male or female) and try to find a blemish, wrinkle, fat fold, hair out of place—basically try to find someone that looks like you that’s not on an advertisement page for Lane Bryant. We find imperfection ugly; in other words: ourselves (unless of course, you’re a model, then no worries).

History of Beauty
Umberto Eco
Rizzoli (2004)
The companion piece to Ugliness looks at beauty historically, as does Ugly, and tries to focus on what makes something beautiful to the masses. Initially, Eco looks at beauty in art, as in Giorgione’s Sleeping Venus from 1509. A zaftig Venus lays languidly, a thing of beauty in the sixteenth century but juxtapose that with, say, Kate Moss today, or, for the non-drug enthusiast, Eva Longoria. These women, in comparison, are probably one sixteenth the size and have distinct “beautiful” features, like: high cheekbones and wrists thin enough to slip an onion ring on—lord knows they won’t eat it. Chapter III, entitled “Beauty as Proportion and Harmony, Numbers and Music” discusses the attractiveness of numbers. How is the number 5 beautiful? “…because 5 is a number full of arcane correspondences and the pentad is an entity that symbolizes mystical and aesthetic perfection. Five is a circular number that, when multiplied, continually comes round to itself (5x5=25x5=125x=625, etc)” Cosmic harmony.
Most interesting, though, is the chapter on “The Beauty of Media” and how consumption and pop art have homogenizing our idea of beauty and art in general. “When pop art took over and began to turn out provocative experimental works based on images from the world of commerce, industry, and media…the art of provocation and the art of consumption grew narrower.” Thank you Andy Warhol, you asshole, how’s that tomato soup taste in hell, jackass?