Essay Briefing and a Question of Beauty

8/12/2019 Essay Briefing and a Question of Beauty

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UNIT & ESSAY BRIEFING


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Lecture Schedule:#Monday 03rdFeb.

10 11am

A Question of Beautyand Essay Briefing#Monday 10thFeb.

10.00 16.00 pm

The Still Life Issue & The Portrait Issue #Monday 17thFeb.

Group tutorials (Term 1 Feedback and Commission Unit) see iCal for details#Monday 24th Feb 10 11am

Documentary and the City: Where is the Street?

(+ seminar task) #Monday 3rd Mar. 10 11am

Fashion Stories(+ seminar task)


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Monday 10th Mar. 10 11

Desire and Disgust: Avant-garde experiments in European photography(+ seminar task) #Monday 17thMarch 10 -11

Sequencing and a Photographic Language of Objectivity(+ essay tutorials) #Monday 24thMarchGroups 2/3 Image Analysis and Essay seminars#Monday 31stMarchGroups 1/4 Image Analysis and Essay seminars

#Monday 28t hApril

Essay Deadline, between 14.00-16.00, Campus Registry


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Aims, Outcomes and Assessment Criteria:

The same as the previous essay Assessment requirement:Essay of 2,000 words. This accounts for 70% of the units marks


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Aims, Outcomes and Assessment Criteria:

The same as the previous essay Assessment requirement:Essay of 2,000 words. This accounts for 70% of the units marks


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THE ESSAY MUST BE 2000WORDS LONG WITH VISUAL

EXAMPLES, APPROPRIATE REFERENCES AND BIBLIOGRAPHY.

#REFERENCING AND BIBLIOGRAPHY MUST FOLLOW UCAACADEMIC CONVENTIONS BY USING THE HARVARD SYSTEM OF

REFERENCING SEE STUDY GUIDES FOR INSTRUCTIONS.THIS ESSAY CONTRIBUTES 70% TOWARDS THE OVERALL

MARK FOR THIS UNIT.


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EXAMPLES, APPROPRIATE REFERENCES AND BIBLIOGRAPHY.#REFERENCING AND BIBLIOGRAPHY MUST FOLLOW UCAACADEMIC CONVENTIONS BY USING THE HARVARD SYSTEM OF


MARK FOR THIS UNIT.


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EXAMPLES, APPROPRIATE REFERENCES AND BIBLIOGRAPHY.

#REFERENCING AND BIBLIOGRAPHY MUST FOLLOW UCAACADEMIC CONVENTIONS BY USING THE HARVARD SYSTEM OF


MARK FOR THIS UNIT.


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EXAMPLES, APPROPRIATE REFERENCES AND BIBLIOGRAPHY.#REFERENCING AND BIBLIOGRAPHY MUST FOLLOW UCAACADEMIC CONVENTIONS BY USING THE HARVARD SYSTEM OF


MARK FOR THIS UNIT.


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Essay Questions:Address oneof the three following

questions.


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1. Compare and contrast the workof Brassai and Wolfgang Tillmans


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Some pointers: consider how their work operates to document or represent people and theirsurroundings. You might look at how their work looks at 'fringe' activities or 'marginal' people.

You could consider how their work operates across the notion of documentary, fashion,

portraiture and street photography.

You might want to look at the different contexts of the photographers and possibly compare

them to other photographers working in this way.

Some other photographers to consider include: Daido Moriyama, William Klein, Lee

Friedlander, Pieter Hugo, Walker Evans, Vivian Sassen, Helen Levitt, Walker Evans, Ed

Van der Elsken, Lise Sarfati, Boris Mikhailov, Diane Arbus


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2. Photographs are made not taken. Consider this statement in relation toexamples of photographers who use construction as a key part of their work.


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Some photographers you may wish to consider: Hannah Starkey, Anne Hardy, JamesCasebere, Anna Gaskell, Cindy Sherman, Guy Bourdin, Duane Michaels, Miles Aldridge,

Jeff Wall, Thomas Demand, Laurie Simmons, Tim Walker, David Lachapelle


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Jeff Wall

Miles Aldridge

Cindy Sherman


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3. Compare and contrast the work of Bernd & Hilla Becher and Robert Frank,paying attention to the way in which they use series of images.


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Bernd & Hilla Becher


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Robert Frank


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Consider the way in which a series of photographs produces a particularmeaning. What kind of relations between images are produced in these works?

How do the photographers use different methods to group photographs? You

may also wish to look at the context of the photographers and also otherphotographers who use similar methods. These could include: Ed Ruscha,

Taryn Simon, Eadweard Muybridge, Eugene W. Smith, Walker Evans,Rinko Kawauchi.


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*Seminar 1: Monday 3rdFebSequence and Objectivity#14.00-15.30 Group 1+215.30-17.00 Group 3+4#*Seminar 2: Monday 24th FebDocumentary and the City14.00-15.30 Group 1+215.30-17.00 Group 3+4#*Seminar 3: Monday 11thMarchThe line between desire and disgust... 14.00-15.30 Group 1+215.30-17.00 Group 3+4


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Essay Support*Monday 03rdFeb.

Essay feedback session A follow-up on general strategies, methods and skills for essay writing#14.00-15.30 Group 1+2 15.30-17.00 Group 3+4 #*Monday 17th Mar. Group essay tutorials with Francis SummersTask: to support issues of structure and argument - bring essay plans and bibliography

and be prepared to discuss #14.00-15.30 Group 1+2 15.30-17.00 Group 3+4


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A QUESTION OF BEAUTY


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Umberto Eco, On BeautyDave Beech (ed.),Beauty


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To question beautyTo ask what is beauty?Any thoughts?


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A key division:Experience

Social value


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A key division:Experience in the eye of the beholderSocial value


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A key division:Experience in the eye of the beholderSocial value an objective thing


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A property? Somethingin

an object / person / thing?

Something which we bring to the equation?Wendy Steiner:

Beauty is an unstable property because it is not a property at all.

It is the name of a particular interaction between two beings, a

selfand an Other

Venus in Exile: The Rejection of Beauty in Twentieth Century Art, 2001


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A property? Something inan object / person / thing?Something which we bring to the equation?Wendy Steiner:

Beauty is an unstable property because it is not a property at all.

It is the name of a particular interaction between two beings, a

selfand an OtherIt is not a qualitybut a type of communicationVenus in Exile: The Rejection of Beauty in Twentieth Century Art, 2001


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Beauty as a historical concept *proportion*that which is loved

*moderation / harmony / symmetry *that which causes conflict, that which stays the

arm


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Sappho:

I think beauty is what you fall in love withPlato:

the fairest bond is that which makes the most

complete union of itself and the things which it

combines; and proportion is best adapted to such a

union


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Sappho:

I think beauty is what you fall in lovewithPlato:

the fairest bond is that which makes the most

complete union of itself and the things which it

combines; and proportionis best adapted to such a

union


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Lucas CranachThe Judgement of Paris

1514


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The second example:

Beauty acts it makes the Greek king, Menelaos spare his wife,

Helen


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Does looking at beauty make the objectof the gaze a passive

thing?Does the act of looking at beauty have consequences for the

viewer (does it make them passive)?


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Greek artistic expressions of beauty:*the ideal schema body and building alike*the static form where a fragment of action finds repose

and equilibrium


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The Temple of Hephaistos in Athens, the best-preserved Doric temple in Greece, 449-415BC The Kritios Boy, ca 480 BC

Like a building, the nude represents a

balance between an ideal scheme and

functional necessity. p. 17Kenneth Clark, The Nude, 1956


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MironDiscobolus

460-450 BC


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Andrea Palladio

Villa Rotonda, Vicenza

1550


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Notre Dame cathedral, rose window,1163-97


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How does proportion change?(The rulesof proportion, what is correct proportion?)


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Naomi WolfThe Beauty Myth, 1991

The quality called beauty objectively and universally exist.

Women must want to embody it and men must want to possess

women who embody it.The qualities that a given period calls beautiful in women are

merely symbols of the female behavior that that period considers

desirable: The beauty myth is always actually prescribing behavior and not

appearance


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appearance

Beauty part of an economybut not linked to objects but to self-

worth


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appearance

Particular behaviors and attributes that are considered desirable

change through history


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Beauty as conformity with the purposeAn act in accordance with an ideaProportion as an ethical dimension the moral beautyBeauty as a mutual collaboration between thingsThomas Aquinas: Beauty consists of due proportion, for the senses delight inwell-proportioned thingsthree elements:

-integrity / perfection (against incomplete / deformed)

-proportion / harmony (against excess / dissonance)-clarity / splendour (against chaos / darkness)

Spiritual beauty consists in the fact that the conduct and the deeds of a person

are well proportioned with the light of reason


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A modern versionForm follows function. The beauty of that which fulfils its function (with least fuss)


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A modern versionForm follows function. The beauty of that which fulfils its function (with least fuss)


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From Beauty as value

to a question of a normA scale by which weare valued


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Is beauty something which we must workat(Not an eternal thing)


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William Butler YeatsAdams Curse

1903To be born a woman is to know Although they do not talk of it at school

That we must labour to be beautiful


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William Butler YeatsAdams Curse

1903To be born a woman is to know Although they do not talk of it at school

That we must labour to be beautiful

Beautya property or a labour?


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Once one talks of beauty, one always finds the uglyThat thing without:proportion (it has the wrong scale)

form (it is formless, a stain or out of place)

conformity with an ideal / purpose (itfails)

clarity or distinction (it is indistinct or hybrid)The ugly object is an object which is in the wrong place

Mark Cousins, The Ugly,AA Files, 1994


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Once one talks of beauty, one always finds the uglyThat thing without:proportion (it has the wrong scale)

form (it is formless, a stain or out of place)

conformity with an ideal / purpose (itfails)

clarity or distinction (it is indistinct or hybrid)The ugly object is an object which is in the wrong place

Mark Cousins, The Ugly,AA Files, 1994


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Diane Arbus


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Helen ChadwickLoop My Loop

1991

Th l d di t / di t


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The ugly and dirt / disgust

Mary Douglas:

dirt (and disgust) is not about

inherent properties but

systems

dirt not as inherently dirty

but as matter-out-of-place

The gl and dirt / disg st


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Mary Douglas:



systems





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Mary Douglas:



systems



Andres Serrano

Piss Christ

1987


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Visually: A beautiful imageSymbolically:A dissonance between the

arrangementof thingsBeauty is not only about the visual

but is linked to symbolic

arrangements

Andres Serrano

Piss Christ

1987


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Visually: A beautiful imageSymbolically:A dissonance between the

arrangementof thingsBeauty is not only about the visual

but is linked to symbolic

arrangements

Andres Serrano

Piss Christ

1987


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Conclusion:Beauty isa subjective experience (it is particular to ones own

situation)

BUTThis experience takes place in a particular cultural context which

has its own pressures and influencing values


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Twentieth Century responses to beauty: A split

beauty found (and refined) in mediaimages*the body*the commodity*the cultivation of taste (design, style, marketing) a critique or distrust of beauty is found in fine artpractices*The primitive (against the classical)

*The machine (against the organic or the expressive)

*Excess (convulsive beauty)


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Lewis Hine


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Power house mechanic1920


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Marcel DuchampFountain1917


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Andr Breton:

Beauty will be convulsive

(in his Nadja)

Convulsive beauty will beveiled-erotic, fixed-explosive,

magical circumstantial or will not

be(in his LAmour Fou)

Man Ray, Fixed-Explosive, 1934


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Miles Aldridge


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Helmut Newton,Nova, 1973, Paris


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Hans Bellmer Guy Bourdin


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Return(s) to beauty Dave Hickey

The Invisible Dragon: Four Essays on Beauty

1993Elaine ScarryOn Beauty and Being Just1999*Beauty has a democratic appeal but it is also always changing

it is not a set value but something we do*Beauty, as proportion, can be thought as a relation to thefair: the

equitable and the empathic thejusticeof fair distribution


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Conclusion:Beauty isa subjective experience (it is particular to ones own

situation)

BUTThis experience takes place in a particular cultural context which

has its own pressures and influencing values


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Cornford & crossbeauty50-50

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Essay Briefing and a Question of Beauty