I both read and listened to the audio book of Roger Scruton's Beauty, A Very Short Introduction. Rarely has an author rubbed me in such the wrong ways. Here are four of the many:
1) In all the many dozens of works of art, music and literature he references, ALL ARE CREATED BY MEN! Hey, Roger, this is the 21st century. Wake up, pal;
2) Roger's language is 100% sexist - man, he, his throughout; not a she or her in the entire book;
3) Continually speaking of humans as "rational beings." I can appreciate we humans have reason and logic but I can't remember my last conversation with a "rational being." How about the emotions? the passions? the intuition? that part of the mind that goes beyond reason? (and, one could argue, where beauty in this world truly resides);
4)
The more I read, the more it became clear to me Roger isn't a big fan
of the human body, probably why there is not one reference to the beauty
of dance - groups like Moscow Ballet, Pilobolus Dance Company or Cirque
du Soleil. For me, some of the most beautiful experiences I've had have
been watching such performances or participating in ecstatic dance
workshops (Gabrielle Roth Dance, Philadelphia Group Motion, to name just
two). Oh, the body in motion can be so, so beautiful!
I'm hardly alone in my assessment. Art critic Sebastian Smee speaks along similar lines in his Guardian review of Roger Scruton's book. Here are several juicy excerpts:
"John Updike thought that, for most men, a naked woman is the most beautiful thing they will ever see. He didn't say it was so for all men, nor did he venture an opinion on whether the reverse held for women. But the proposition, so bluntly delivered – as if centuries of hair-splitting philosophy and frenetic sublimation could be swept aside with one cheerfully ingenuous sentence – has always struck me as hard to refute.
Its implications – that our idea of beauty is linked to sexual selection and Darwinian evolution and that, as such, it is possibly quite banal – are firmly rejected by Roger Scruton in his new book Beauty. This is not an attempt to define beauty. Rather, it asks whether there are correct judgments to be made about it – reasons why we should prefer Titian's Venus of Urbino to Boucher's Blonde Odalisque or, indeed, to photographs of porn stars having sex. Framing the question in this way implies a search for standards. It also implies an attempt to link beauty with morality, which is no easy task.
The work of both artists (paintings of women by Velázquez and Rembrandt) is beautiful, but not, I think, in the rational sense Scruton champions, which depends too heavily on the more easily communicable concept of taste. In the end the most important question about beauty, to return to Updike's salvo, is whether it is special and profound or ubiquitous and really rather unremarkable. The art critic Peter Schjeldahl expressed a synthesis of these two possibilities when he wrote: "Beauty is, or ought to be, no big deal, though the lack of it is. Beauty presents a stone wall to the thinking mind. But to the incarnate mind – deferential to the buzzing and gurgling body – beauty is as fluid, clear, and shining as an Indian summer afternoon.
Roger Scruton has moments of great insight and clarity in this attractively slim volume, but he is less than deferential to the buzzing and gurgling body. He seems to find it distasteful. For him, beauty is not connected to animal joy, but to human reason. I'm not at all sure he has it right."
Thanks, Sebastian.
But I'll end my own review on a positive note. Roger's book does offer many insights on an entire range of subjects that will be particularly appealing for readers with a rich background in philosophy and the arts revolving around the European tradition. I especially enjoyed his reflections on the writings of David Hume, Théophile Gautier, Günter Grass and Clement Greenberg.
I'm hardly alone in my assessment. Art critic Sebastian Smee speaks along similar lines in his Guardian review of Roger Scruton's book. Here are several juicy excerpts:
"John Updike thought that, for most men, a naked woman is the most beautiful thing they will ever see. He didn't say it was so for all men, nor did he venture an opinion on whether the reverse held for women. But the proposition, so bluntly delivered – as if centuries of hair-splitting philosophy and frenetic sublimation could be swept aside with one cheerfully ingenuous sentence – has always struck me as hard to refute.
Its implications – that our idea of beauty is linked to sexual selection and Darwinian evolution and that, as such, it is possibly quite banal – are firmly rejected by Roger Scruton in his new book Beauty. This is not an attempt to define beauty. Rather, it asks whether there are correct judgments to be made about it – reasons why we should prefer Titian's Venus of Urbino to Boucher's Blonde Odalisque or, indeed, to photographs of porn stars having sex. Framing the question in this way implies a search for standards. It also implies an attempt to link beauty with morality, which is no easy task.
The work of both artists (paintings of women by Velázquez and Rembrandt) is beautiful, but not, I think, in the rational sense Scruton champions, which depends too heavily on the more easily communicable concept of taste. In the end the most important question about beauty, to return to Updike's salvo, is whether it is special and profound or ubiquitous and really rather unremarkable. The art critic Peter Schjeldahl expressed a synthesis of these two possibilities when he wrote: "Beauty is, or ought to be, no big deal, though the lack of it is. Beauty presents a stone wall to the thinking mind. But to the incarnate mind – deferential to the buzzing and gurgling body – beauty is as fluid, clear, and shining as an Indian summer afternoon.
Roger Scruton has moments of great insight and clarity in this attractively slim volume, but he is less than deferential to the buzzing and gurgling body. He seems to find it distasteful. For him, beauty is not connected to animal joy, but to human reason. I'm not at all sure he has it right."
Thanks, Sebastian.
But I'll end my own review on a positive note. Roger's book does offer many insights on an entire range of subjects that will be particularly appealing for readers with a rich background in philosophy and the arts revolving around the European tradition. I especially enjoyed his reflections on the writings of David Hume, Théophile Gautier, Günter Grass and Clement Greenberg.
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