Fotofilia: February 2011

Friday, February 25, 2011

Beauty in the Beast

There are several famous dualisms that have inspired the arts for centuries - the good over evil, love over death and ofcourse, beauty and the beast. What is beautiful is good, though its goodness is often threatened by the ugliness of evil.

Peter-Paul Rubens, Susanna and the Elders, 17th c.

Yet the contrast between the beautiful and ugly is not nearly as thrilling as the moment in which they clash into a singular form. Oscar Wilde was aware of this fine line when he penned his only novel, The Picture of Dorian Gray, realising the role of art in creating this duality. Dorian Gray's portrait grows ugly as he retains his beauty but loses his soul.
"There were moments when he looked on evil simply as a mode through which he could realise his conception of the beautiful"

Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray

I find one image that perfectly capture this incongruous moment. The swan.

Photo by Ed Buziak

A swan is an unparalleled symbol of the ugliness, violence and cruelty of beauty. We are blind to beauty's ugly origins, its shallow unfeeling nature and to its cruel behavior. We do not see the beast in the beauty just as we do not see the sinews and deformities of a ballerina's body, yet without the other, neither would exist. Therein lies the art.