When asked to define beauty, I was met with hesitation to give my own definition. How does one describe beauty? It's apparent to many of us that there is no exact answer. Afterall, we all have individual opinions, we all have our own style, our own aesthetic. We all come from different cultures and backgrounds. How can one person define beauty for the rest of us? In her essay Every Man Knows Where and How Beauty Gives Him Pleasure: Beauty Discourse and the Logic of Aesthetics, Amelia Jones looks at the ideas of art critic Dave Hickey. Hickey believed that only he had the authority to describe what is beautiful and what isn't, while Jones understands that the definition of beauty is up to the interpretation of each person. Hickey believes himself to be the arbiter of beauty because he is an educated man, but his biases prevent him from being an impartial observer. While art historians like Amelia Jones, are interested in the meaning of artwork and its cultural significance, art critics evaluate artwork and generally write their personal opinions about the artwork. Hickey's views no doubt display cultural ignorance. It is obvious when he describes Mapplethorpe's work. According to Jones, Hickey claimed that Mapplethorpe produced images that are "dangerous because of their direct enfranchisement with the secular beholder and their Baroque vernacular of beauty that predated and, clearly, outperformed the puritanical canon of visual appeal espoused by the therapeutic institution". (Jones 221) Many of Hickey's beliefs rely heavily on his own cultural influence, political beliefs, and religion whether he admits it or not. I'm not sure that beauty can ever be defined in a way that will satisfy everyone. In fact, I will just say right now that we will never all agree. There are always going to be people who disagree with us for one reason or another. In an ideal work we could all agree on a definition, but unfortunately, people could argue about a gif of a cat on the internet. Jones talks about Renee Cox's work with the utmost respect. Pictured below is an image that Jones included in her essay in which she says, "I want to align myself definitively with Cox's strength of mind and body, as I perceive these being expressed in the taut body-image of a strong naked woman who is at once sexualized object, threatening (masculinized) muscular black female subject and maternal subject". She writes about Cox's photography in an entirely different way than Hickey wrote about Mapplethorpe's. Jones praises Cox's photography, while also complimenting her strong body, her mind and her ironic sense of humor. Hickey describes Mapplethorpe's work as if it disgusts him. I must admit that I also love this photograph by Renee Cox. To see this image of a woman carrying her child, showing how strong she is not just physically, but also mentally and emotionally, it is just incredible representation. |
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| Renee Cox, Yo Mama!, 1993. |
Works Cited
https://www.brooklynmuseum.org/opencollection/objects/189271
Amelia Jones, Every Man Knows Where and How Beauty Gives Him Pleasure: Beauty Discourse and the Logic of Aesthetics (PhD diss., Oxford University Press, 2002).
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