Author: Umberto Eco
Publisher: MacLehose Press
ISBN: 9780857051622
Category : Aesthetics
Languages : en
Pages : 0
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Book Description
Sumptuously illustrated and fascinatingly written - a vast store of wisdom on the nature of ugliness by one of our most celebrated contemporary thinkers.
Author: Gretchen E. Henderson
Publisher: Reaktion Books
ISBN: 1780235240
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 242
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Book Description
"'Ugly as sin', 'ugly duckling', 'rear its ugly head'. The word 'ugly' is used freely, yet it is a loaded term: from the simply plain and unsightly to the repulsive and even offensive, definitions slide all over the place. Hovering around 'feared and dreaded', ugliness both repels and fascinates. But the concept of ugliness has a lineage that has long haunted our cultural imagination. Gretchen E. Henderson explores perceptions of ugliness through history, from ancient Roman feasts to medieval grotesque gargoyles, from Mary Shelley's monster cobbled from corpses to the Nazi Exhibition of Degenerate Art. Covering literature, art, music and even Ugly dolls, Henderson reveals how ugliness has long posed a challenge to aesthetics and taste. Henderson digs into the muck of ugliness, moving beyond the traditional philosophic argument or mere opposition to beauty, and emerges with more than a selection of fascinating tidbits. Following ugly bodies and dismantling ugly senses across periods and continents, [this book] draws on a wealth of fields to cross cultures and times, delineating the changing map of ugliness as it charges the public imagination. Illustrated with a range of artefacts, this book offers a refreshing perspective that moves beyond the surface to ask what 'ugly' truly is, even as its meaning continues to shift"--
Author: Professor of Semiotics Umberto Eco
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780847831760
Category : Aesthetics
Languages : en
Pages : 0
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Book Description
The first illustrated book by one of the world’s most acclaimed authors, History of Beauty presents an intriguing journey into the wonderful realm of aesthetics, exploring the ever-changing concept of the beautiful from ancient Greece to today with abundant examples. Closely examining the development of the visual arts and drawing on literature from each era, the range of Eco’s inquiry includes concepts such as the idea of love, natural inspiration versus numeric formulas, and the unattainable woman. In the mold of History of Beauty, On Ugliness is an exploration of the monstrous and the repellant in visual culture and arts. Eco’s encyclopedic knowledge and captivating storytelling combines in this ingenious study of the ugly, revealing that we often shield ourselves from what we’re most attracted to subliminally. With numerous examples of art, and quotations from the most celebrated writers and philosophers of each age, this provocative book explores in-depth the concepts of evil, depravity, and darkness in art and literature.
Author: Karl Rosenkranz
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 1472568869
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 591
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Book Description
In this key text in the history of art and aesthetics, Karl Rosenkranz shows ugliness to be the negation of beauty without being reducible to evil, materiality, or other negative terms used it's conventional condemnation. This insistence on the specificity of ugliness, and on its dynamic status as a process afflicting aesthetic canons, reflects Rosenkranz's interest in the metropolis - like Walter Benjamin, he wrote on Paris and Berlin - and his voracious collecting of caricature and popular prints. Rosenkranz, living and teaching, like Kant, in remote Königsberg, reflects on phenomena of modern urban life from a distance that results in critical illumination. The struggle with modernization and idealist aesthetics makes Aesthetics of Ugliness, published four years before Baudelaire's Fleurs du Mal, hugely relevant to modernist experiment as well as to the twenty-first century theoretical revival of beauty. Translated into English for the first time, Aesthetics of Ugliness is an indispensable work for scholars and students of modern aesthetics and modernist art, literary studies and cultural theory, which fundamentally reworks conceptual understandings of what it means for a thing to be ugly.
Author: Debra L. Fonseca
Publisher: Xlibris Corporation
ISBN: 1493126334
Category : Self-Help
Languages : en
Pages : 167
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Book Description
In all ugliness, beauty lies within, representing individuals like you and me, who are willing to look deep inside ourselves to admit the truth about the ugliness in us. Do not only admit it, but address it where it demonstrates strength and strong will to overcome life’s challenges without making excuses. Everyone knows that life can be unfair at times; the question is, during the midst of it, how are we going to react? Usually, in the face of adversity, one is defined in character. This book expresses a lot of heartache, as well as triumph. I am hoping that my readers will embrace the essence of its beauty although shown in darkness because all can relate. At some point or another, life has hit you with uncertainty; the fact that you are reading this book proves your triumph over life’s setbacks. I am proud of you. Within these pages, I have tried to reveal the reality of bondage in its true form then turned it around for beauty for the sole propose of saving other people’s lives through awareness. If I can turn ugliness into art through creative writing, then there are no limits to what you can do; just do humbly, and loveliness and grace will beseech you and everything you set your hearts to do in life will prosper.
Author: Vernon Lee
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Aesthetics
Languages : en
Pages : 414
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Book Description
Author: Mojca Küplen
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 3319198998
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 159
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Book Description
This book presents a solution to the problem known in philosophical aesthetics as the paradox of ugliness, namely, how an object that is displeasing can retain our attention and be greatly appreciated. It does this by exploring and refining the most sophisticated and thoroughly worked out theoretical framework of philosophical aesthetics, Kant’s theory of taste, which was put forward in part one of the Critique of the Power of Judgment. The book explores the possibility of incorporating ugliness, a negative aesthetic concept, into the overall Kantian aesthetic picture. It addresses a debate of the last two decades over whether Kant's aesthetics should allow for a pure aesthetic judgment of ugliness. The book critically reviews the main interpretations of Kant’s central notion of the free play of imagination and understanding and offers a new interpretation of free play, one that allows for the possibility of a disharmonious state of mind and ugliness. In addition, the book also applies an interpretation of ugliness in Kant’s aesthetics to resolve certain issues that have been raised in contemporary aesthetics, namely the possibility of appreciating artistic and natural ugliness and the role of disgust in artistic representation. Offering a theoretical and practical analysis of different kinds of negative aesthetic experiences, this book will help readers acquire a better understanding of his or her own evaluative processes, which may be helpful in coping with complex aesthetic experiences. Readers will gain unique insight into how ugliness can be offensive, yet, at the same time, fascinating, interesting and captivating.
Author: Donald L. Miller
Publisher: Rosetta Books
ISBN: 0795339852
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 1084
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Book Description
“A wonderfully readable account of Chicago’s early history” and the inspiration behind PBS’s American Experience (Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times). Depicting its turbulent beginnings to its current status as one of the world’s most dynamic cities, City of the Century tells the story of Chicago—and the story of America, writ small. From its many natural disasters, including the Great Fire of 1871 and several cholera epidemics, to its winner-take-all politics, dynamic business empires, breathtaking architecture, its diverse cultures, and its multitude of writers, journalists, and artists, Chicago’s story is violent, inspiring, passionate, and fascinating from the first page to the last. The winner of the prestigious Great Lakes Book Award, given to the year’s most outstanding books highlighting the American heartland, City of the Century has received consistent rave reviews since its publication in 1996, and was made into a six-hour film airing on PBS’s American Experience series. Written with energetic prose and exacting detail, it brings Chicago’s history to vivid life. “With City of the Century, Miller has written what will be judged as the great Chicago history.” —John Barron, Chicago Sun-Times “Brims with life, with people, surprise, and with stories.” —David McCullough, Pulitzer Prize–winning author of John Adams and Truman “An invaluable companion in my journey through Old Chicago.” —Erik Larson, New York Times–bestselling author of The Devil in the White City
Author: Andrei Pop
Publisher: I.B. Tauris
ISBN: 9781784533557
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 328
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Book Description
Ugliness is very much alive in the history of art. From ritual invocations of mythic monsters to the scare tactics of the early twentieth-century avant-garde, from the cabinet of curiosities to the identity politics of today, the ugly has been every bit as active as the beautiful, and often much more of a reality... Why then has it been so neglected? This book seeks to remedy this oversight through both broad theoretical reflection and concrete case studies of ugliness in various historical and cultural contexts. The protagonists range from cooks to psychoanalysts, from war prostheses to plates of asparagus, on a world stage stretching from ancient Athens to Singapore today. Drawing across disciplinary and cultural boundaries, the writers illuminate why ugliness, associated over the millennia with negative categories ranging from sin and stupidity to triviality and boredom, remains central to art and cultural practice.
Author: Umberto Eco
Publisher: Yale University Press
ISBN: 9780300093049
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 160
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Book Description
In this authoritative, lively book, the celebrated Italian novelist and philosopher Umberto Eco presents a learned summary of medieval aesthetic ideas. Juxtaposing theology and science, poetry and mysticism, Eco explores the relationship that existed between the aesthetic theories and the artistic experience and practice of medieval culture. "[A] delightful study. . . . [Eco's] remarkably lucid and readable essay is full of contemporary relevance and informed by the energies of a man in love with his subject." --Robert Taylor, Boston Globe "The book lays out so many exciting ideas and interesting facts that readers will find it gripping." --Washington Post Book World "A lively introduction to the subject." --Michael Camille, The Burlington Magazine "If you want to become acquainted with medieval aesthetics, you will not find a more scrupulously researched, better written (or better translated), intelligent and illuminating introduction than Eco's short volume." --D. C. Barrett, Art Monthly
