An Argument about Beauty

Author(s): Susan Sontag

Reviewed work(s):
Source: Daedalus, Vol. 131, No. 4, On Beauty (Fall, 2002), pp. 21-26
Published by: The MIT Press on behalf of American Academy of Arts & Sciences
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Susan Sontag

An argument about beauty

at last, in April of 2002, to see past. The

Responding Pope likes venerable ideas.
the scandal created by the revelation of And as a term (like
beauty, signifying
innumerable cover-ups of sexually pred health) an indisputable excellence, has
atory priests, Pope John Paul II told the been a perennial resource in the issuing
American cardinals summoned to the of peremptory evaluations.
Vatican, "A great work of art may be Permanence, however, is not one of
blemished, but its beauty remains ;and more obvious attributes ;and
beauty's
this is a truth which any intellectually the contemplation of beauty, when it is
honest critic will recognize." expert, may be wreathed in pathos, the
Is it too odd that the Pope likens the drama on which Shakespeare elaborates
-
Catholic Church to a great that is, in many of the Sonnets. Traditional cele
-
beautiful work of art? Perhaps not, brations of beauty in Japan, like the
since the inane comparison allows him annual rite of cherry-blossom viewing,
to turn abhorrent misdeeds into some are
keenly elegiac; the most stirring
thing like the scratches in the print of a beauty is the most evanescent. To make
silent film or craquelure covering the beauty in some sense
imperishable
re
surface of an Old Master painting, blem quired
a lot of
conceptual tinkering and
ishes that we reflexively screen out or
transposing, but the idea was simply too
too potent, to be squandered on
alluring,
Susan Sontag has been a Fellow of theAmerican the praise of superior embodiments. The
since 1993. Best known as a novelist and aim was to multiply the notion, to allow
Academy
- for kinds of beauty, beauty with adjec
essayist her books have been translated into thir
ty-two languages
-
she has also written stories and tives, arranged on a scale of ascending
value and incorruptibility, with the
plays, written and directed movies, and worked as
a theatre director in theUnited States and Europe. uses ('intellectual
metaphorized beauty,'
In 2000 shewon theNational Book Award for 'spiritual beauty') taking precedence
over what as
her novel "In America," and in 2001 received the ordinary language extols
- a to senses.
Jerusalem Prize for the body of her work. Last beautiful gladness the
a new collection "Where the Stress The less 'uplifting' beauty of face and
year, of essays,
Falls," was published. Her next book, "Regarding body remains the most commonly visit
thePain of Others," will appear in early 2003, ed site of the beautiful. But one would
and she is also
writing another novel. hardly expect the Pope to invoke that
sense of an
beauty while constructing
? 2002 by Susan Sontag account -
exculpatory of several genera

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Susan tions' worth of the clergy's sexual mo to mean 'merely' beautiful: there is no
Sontag lestation of children
r and protection of more vapid or
on philistine compliment.
the molesters. More to the point - his Elsewhere, beauty still reigns, irre
beauty
-
point 'higher' beauty of art.
is the pressible. (How could it not?) When
However much art may seem to be a that notorious beauty-lover Oscar Wilde
matter of surface and reception by the announced in The Decay of Lying, "No
it has generally an ever talks about
senses, been accorded body of any real culture
honorary citizenship in the domain of the beauty of a sunset. Sunsets are quite
'inner' (as opposed to 'outer') beauty. old-fashioned," sunsets reeled under the

Beauty, it seems, is immutable, at least blow, then recovered. Les beaux-arts,

- - in to a similar call to be
when incarnated fixed the form of when summoned
art, because it is in art that beauty as an up-to-date, did not. The subtraction of
idea, an eternal idea, is best embodied. as a standard for art
beauty hardly sig
Beauty (should you choose to
use the nals a decline of the authority of beauty.
word that way) is deep, not superficial; Rather, it testifies to a decline in the be
hidden, sometimes, rather than obvious ; lief that there is something called art.

consoling, not troubling; indestructible,

as in art, rather than ephemeral, as in
3
nature. the stipulatively an
Beauty, uplifting Even when Beauty was unquestioned
kind, perdures. criterion of value in the arts, itwas
defined laterally, by evoking some other
2 that was supposed to be the
quality
The best of beauty is its history. essence or sine qua non of that
theory something
the was beautiful. A definition
Thinking history of beauty
about of the beauti
means focusing
on its
deployment in the ful was no more (or less) than a com
hands of specific communities. mendation of the beautiful. When, for
Communities dedicated by their lead example, Lessing equated beauty with
ers to stemming what is perceived as a harmony, he was offering another gener
noxious tide of innovative views have no al idea of what is excellent or desirable.
interest in modifying
the bulwark pro In the absence of a definition in the
vided by the use of
beauty
as unexcep strict sense, there was
supposed to be an
tionable commendation and consola organ or capacity for registering beauty
tion. It is not surprising that John Paul (that is, value) in the arts, called 'taste,'
II, and the
preserve-and-conserve
insti and a canon of works discerned by peo
tution for which he speaks, feels as com ple of taste, seekers after more rarefied
fortable with as with the idea of adepts of connoisseur
beauty gratifications,
the good. ship. For in the arts - unlike life - beauty
It also seems inevitable that when, al was not assumed to be necessarily appar
most a century ago, the most prestigious ent, evident, obvious.

communities concerned with the fine The problem with taste was that, how
arts dedicated themselves to drastic proj ever much it resulted in periods of large
ects of innovation, beauty would turn up agreement within communities of art
on the front line of notions to be dis lovers, it issued from private, immediate,
credited. Beauty could not but appear a and revocable responses to art. And the
conservative standard to the makers and consensus, however firm, was never

of the new; Gertrude Stein more than local. To address this defect,
proclaimers
- a -
said that to call awork of art beautiful Kant dedicated universalizer pro
means that it is dead. Beautiful has come posed a distinctive faculty of 'judgment'
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with discernable principles of a general taste, except for occasions that allow one
and abiding kind; the tastes legislated by to celebrate the defeat of snobbery and
this faculty of judgment, if properly re the triumph of what was once conde
flected upon, should be the possession of scended to as bad taste. Today, good
all. But 'judgment' did not have its in taste seems even more
retrograde
an

tended effect of shoring up 'taste' or idea than beauty. Austere, difficult 'mod
it, in a certain sense, more dem ernist' art and literature have come to
making
ocratic. For one seem old-fashioned, a of
thing, taste-as-princi conspiracy
was hard to apply, since it snobs. Innovation is relaxation now;
pled-judgment
had the most tenuous connection with today's E-Z Art gives the green light to
the actual works of art deemed incon all. In the cultural climate favoring the
or beautiful, unlike the pli more art of recent years,
testably great user-friendly
able, empirical criterion of taste. And the beautiful seems, if not obvious, then
taste is now a far weaker, more assailable pretentious. Beauty continues to take a
notion than itwas in the late eighteenth battering in what are called,
absurdly,
century. Whose taste? Or, more insolent our culture wars.

who sez ?
ly,
As the relativistic stance in cultural 4
matters on the old assess
pressed harder That beauty applied to some things and
-
ments, definitions of beauty descrip not to others, that itwas a principle of
-
tions of its essence became emptier. was once its strength and
discrimination,
no as
Beauty could longer be something appeal. Beauty belonged to the family of
as For the na notions that establish
positive harmony. Val?ry, rank, and accord
ture of beauty is that it cannot be de ed well with social order unapologetic
fined; beauty is precisely 'the ineffable.' about station, class, hierarchy, and the
The failure of the notion of beauty re to exclude.
right
flects the discrediting of the prestige of What had been a virtue of the concept
itself, as that could became its liability. Beauty, which once
judgment something
be or seemed vulnerable itwas too
conceivably impartial objective, because
not always self-serving or was as -
self-referring. general, loose, porous, revealed
It also reflects the discrediting of binary on the contrary -
excluding too much.
discourses in the arts. Beauty defines it once a
Discrimination, positive faculty
self as the antithesis of the ugly. Obvi refined judgment, high stan
(meaning
ously, you can't say something is beauti turned negative:
dards, fastidiousness),
ful if you're not willing to say something itmeant to
prejudice, bigotry, blindness
is ugly. But there are more and more ta the virtues of what was not identical
boos about calling something, anything, with oneself.
an look first not
ugly. (For explanation, The strongest, most successful move
at the rise of so-called political correct was in the arts :beauty,
against beauty
ness, but at the evolving con
ideology of and the caring about beauty, was restric
sumerism, then at the complicity be tive ;as the current idiom has it, elitist.
tween these two.) The point is to find Our appreciations, itwas felt, could be
what is beautiful in what has not hither so much more inclusive ifwe said that
to been as beautiful (or: the instead of being beautiful,
regarded something,
beautiful in the ugly). was
'interesting.'
Similarly, there ismore and more re Of course, when people said awork of
sistance to the idea of 'good taste,' that art was interesting, this did not mean
is, to the dichotomy -
good taste/bad that they necessarily liked it much less

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Susan that they thought it beautiful. It usually judgment of beauty (or of goodness).
ontag meant no more than they thought they The interesting is now mainly a con

beauty ought to like it. Or that they liked it,

sort sumerist concept, bent on enlarging its
of, even though itwasn't beautiful. domain :the more that become
things
Or they might describe something
as interesting, the more the marketplace
to - as an
interesting avoid the banality of call grows. The boring understood
was the art an -
ing it beautiful. Photography absence, emptiness implies its anti
where 'the interesting' first triumphed, dote: the promiscuous, empty affirma
and early on :the new, photographic way tions of the interesting. It is a peculiarly
of seeing proposed as a po inconclusive way of experiencing
everything reality.
tential subject for the camera. The beau In order to enrich this deprived take
tiful could not have yielded such a range on our one would have to
experiences,
of subjects ;and soon came to seem un acknowledge
a full notion of boredom :
cool to boot as a judgment. Of a photo depression, rage (suppressed despair).
graph of
a sunset, a beautiful sunset, Then one could work toward a full no
anyone with minimal standards of ver tion of the interesting. But that quality
- - one
bal sophistication might well prefer to of experience of feeling would
say, "Yes, the photograph is interesting." no even want to call
probably longer
interesting.
5
What is interesting? Mostly, what has 6
not previously been thought beautiful can illustrate an ideal; a
Beauty perfec
(or good). The sick are interesting, as tion. Or, because of its identification
Nietzsche points out. The wicked, too. with women (more accurately, with
To name as interesting im it can
something Woman), trigger the usual ambiv
plies challenging old orders of praise ; alence that stems from the age-old deni
such judgments aspire to be found inso gration of the feminine. Much of the dis
lent or at least ingenious. Connoisseurs crediting of beauty needs to be under
-
of the interesting whose antonym is stood as a result of the gender inflection.
- not har
the boring appreciate clash, Misogyny, too, might underlie the urge
mony. Liberalism is boring, declares to metaphorize beauty, thereby promot
Carl Schmitt in The Concept of the Politi ing it out of the realm of the 'merely'
cal, written in 1932 (the following year he feminine, the unserious, the specious.
the Nazi A con For ifwomen are because
joined Party). politics worshiped
ducted according to liberal principles are beautiful, are condescend
they they
lacks drama, flavor, conflict, while ed to for their preoccupation with mak
- -
strong autocratic politics and war ing or keeping themselves beautiful.
are interesting. Beauty is theatrical, it is for being looked
Long
use of 'the interesting' as a crite at and admired; and the word is as likely
rion of value has, inevitably, weakened to suggest the beauty industry (beauty
its transgressive bite. What is left of the magazines, beauty parlors, beauty prod
-
old insolence lies mainly in its disdain ucts) the theatre of feminine frivoli
-
for the consequences of actions and of ty as the beauties of art and of nature.

judgments. As for the truthfulness of the How else to explain the association of
- not even enter the - -
ascription that does beauty i.e., women with mindless

ness? To be concerned with one's own

story. One calls something interesting
so as not to have to commit to a beauty is to risk the charge of narcissism
precisely

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and frivolity. Consider all the beauty becomes available over a deep, lifelong
synonyms, starting with the 'lovely,' the engagement with the aesthetic cannot, I

merely 'pretty,' which cry out for a virile venture to say, be duplicated by any
transposition. other kind of seriousness. Indeed, the
"Handsome is as handsome does." various definitions of beauty come at
(But not: "Beautiful is as beautiful to a plausible
least as close characteriza
does.") Though it applies no less than tion of virtue, and of a fuller humanity,
does 'beautiful' to appearance, 'hand as the attempts to define goodness as
-
some' free of associations with the such.
- seems amore
feminine sober, less
gushing way of commending. Beauty is 8

not ordinarily associated with gravitas. is part of the history of idealiz

Beauty
Thus one might prefer to call the vehicle
ing,which is itself part of the history of
for delivering searing images of war and consolation. But beauty may not always
atrocity a 'handsome book,' as I did in console. The beauty of face and figure
the preface to a recent of
compilation torments, subjugates ; that beauty is
Don McCullin, lest call The
photographs by imperious. beauty that is human,
it a 'beautiful book' (which itwas) -
ing and the beauty that ismade (art) both
would seem an affront to its raise the fantasy of possession.
appalling Our
subject. model of the disinterested comes from
the beauty of nature - a nature that is
7 distant, overarching, unpossessable.
It's usually assumed that beauty is, al From a letter written a
by German sol
most tautologically, an 'aesthetic' cate dier standing guard in the Russian win
gory, which puts it, according to many, ter in late December of 1942 : "The most
on a collision course with the ethical. beautiful Christmas I had ever seen,
But beauty, even beauty in the amoral made of disinterested emotions
entirely
mode, is never naked. And the ascription and stripped of all tawdry trimmings. I
of beauty is never unmixed with moral was all alone beneath an enormous
values. Far from the aesthetic and the starred sky, and I can remember a tear
ethical being poles apart, as Kierkegaard running down my frozen cheek, a tear
and Tolstoy insisted, the aesthetic is it neither of pain nor of joy but of emotion
self a quasi-moral project. Arguments created by intense experience_99?
about beauty since Plato are stocked Unlike beauty, often fragile and imper
with questions about the proper relation manent, the capacity to be overwhelmed
to the beautiful en
(the irresistibly, by the beautiful is astonishingly
sturdy
thrallingly beautiful), which is thought and survives amidst the harshest distrac
to flow from the nature of tions. Even war, even the prospect
beauty itself. of
The perennial tendency to make of certain death, cannot expunge it.
itself a to split it
beauty binary concept,
up into 'inner' and 'outer,' 'higher' and 9
'lower' beauty, is the usual way that The beauty of art is better, 'higher,'
judgments of the beautiful are colonized to Hegel,
according than the beauty of
by moral judgments. From a Nietz
schean (orWildean) point of view, this 1 Quoted in G. Fritz, :
Stephen Frontsoldaten
may be improper, but it seems to me The German Soldier inWorld War II (Lexington,
unavoidable. And the wisdom that Ky.
:
University Press of Kentucky, 1995), 130.

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Susan nature because it ismade by human
a% and is the work of the spirit. But
beings
beauty the discerning of beauty in nature is also
the result of traditions of consciousness,
and of culture - in
Hegel's language, of
spirit.
The responses to beauty in art and to
in nature are As
beauty interdependent.
Wilde pointed out, art does more than
school us on how and what to appreciate
in nature. (He was
thinking of poetry
and painting. Today the standards of
are
beauty in nature largely set by pho
tography.) What is beautiful reminds us
of nature as such - of what lies beyond
the human and the made - and thereby
stimulates and deepens our sense of the
sheer spread and fullness of reality, inan
imate as well as
pulsing, that surrounds
us all.
A happy by-product of this insight, if
:
insight it is beauty regains its solidity,
its inevitability, as a to
judgment needed
make sense of a large portion of one's

energies, affinities, and admirations;

and the usurping notions appear ludi
crous.

Imagine saying, "That sunset is inter

esting."

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