MORE ABOUT BEAUTY AND UGLINESS IN ART

The illustrator A.B. Frost drew with a marvelous line.  He had a special knack for infusing animals with character:

Note the unorthodox way Frost depicts that tail, the stance of the barking dog, the way Frost captures the shape of
the dog's skull, the comical exaggeration of the open mouth and those long, droopy ears. 

I'm dazzled by the speed and confidence of Frost's beautiful line capturing this dancer wearing an apron. You have to wonder whether this was drawn with a pen or a rapier.

Note the shading on those shoes; what beautiful ink!

When it came to suggesting a background, Frost knew to use a light touch.  Not too much detail, but he nevertheless understood that the tree trunks required a round line, while the tree branches required a flurry of light scratches.

The drawing was published in Life magazine in 1922, long before the era of videos, yet Frost made the image more dynamic, infused with more energy and speed, than many videos depicting actual movement today: 

I love the powerful shadows under the man's arm, under the flaps of his jacket, and
on his ankle.  Those shoes are sheer poetry! 

SO we can safely conclude that this is a beautiful drawing, right?

Uh oh!

The caption on this drawing was, "Yo’ kin talk erbout yo’ tukkey an’ yo’ chicken an’ yo’ goose. Dem things is good fo’ white folks…”.   

So what do you think?  Beautiful? Ugly?  Both?

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The drawing was exhibited at the recent show, "Imprinted" at the Norman Rockwell Museum and will be traveling to other museums.  Definitely worth seeing if you get the chance.

UGLY'S GOT NOTHING TO DO WITH IT

In recent weeks, I've received an increasing percentage of comments criticizing pictures for featuring  "ugly" people or "evil" themes, rather than for being "poorly drawn" or "badly painted" or "unimaginative."

• In a recent post about illustrations for the classic novel Lolita, many commenters were uninterested in the creativity or quality of the images because they didn't approve of the book's plot.  None of the images were explicit, but the underlying story was too "depraved."

• In a recent post about an illustration of President Trump, many commenters were less interested in the artistry of the image than in what they suspected were the "totalitarian" sympathies of the artist, or even my own suspected political leanings for showing such a picture  ("You are a Fabian Socialist, a hard leftist, a radical in sheep's clothing. A snooty superior commie pretending not to be, quietly and cleverly trying to undermine our constitution. You are worse than a total partisan hack. You are a Manchurian activist; a deceiver and a traitor.") 

• In a recent post about drawings by artist John Cuneo, a number of commenters criticized Cuneo's pictures for being too ugly. ("It’s hard for me to appreciate Cuneo’s illustrations because they are so damn ugly."  Cuneo is a "a psychosexual slob."  His drawings show "saggy tits" and "flab.")  Even worse, some suspected that Cuneo's admirers have "lib" leanings.

The direction of these comments surprises me; there's plenty of beautiful art about ugly subjects.  Just ask Shakespeare.

My own test for Cuneo's drawings was never, "Would I invite this woman to the prom?" Rather, I feel his drawings are beautiful because their line work is sensitive, complex, thoughtful, probing and intelligent:

Details of Cuneo drawings

Cuneo is not for everyone's taste, but as far as I'm concerned people who dismiss such drawings as "ugly" are applying criteria from a parallel universe. They are likely to miss out on some of the most rewarding material art has to offer.  

So in today's post it's probably worth considering:  what makes a drawing "ugly"?

I've previously written about how much I adore this drawing by Tom Fluharty: 

Readers who sneer at drawings of "flabby" people may be troubled by this picture, but I personally consider it a masterpiece of good drawing: well conceived and designed, with those crisp dark accents shaping and containing that billowing flesh.  Fluharty threw away the anatomy book and drew this with his eyes opened, the way good artists are supposed to.  He was never tempted to let symmetry do half of his work for him.  At the risk of further shocking readers, I would defend this drawing to anyone as "beautiful."

Next, there's artist David Levine, who walked right past the academic models to draw what he called the "shmata queens," the heavy, ungainly women who hung out on a nearby beach. Levine said he was interested in...  

a dwindling group of elderly women: Shmata Queens of Coney. The "shmata," or "rag," not only refers to the head cloth, but also to the bathing suits - faded and misshapen by molding to aged and deformed bodies that have been out under the sun....  Once, as I was finishing a drawing, my model said, "Dere is vun ting you kent ketch about us." When I inquired what that might be, she answered, "How much ve eat."

Again and again Levine drew and painted these women on the beach.  I'm sure if you asked whether he thought they were "ugly" he'd be puzzled by the question.  Certainly they aren't ugly in any sense that should be relevant here.

Still another artist with an observant eye and an interest in less idealized forms of beauty was Andrew Wyeth.  He seemed determined to record every mile that a long, harsh life had left on the faces of his subjects:

We have to be careful about judging art based on the morals of the people depicted, or whether a character has a wart on her nose, or whether the colors are pretty.   Those are all relevant considerations when it comes to deciding whether you should hang a picture in your breakfast nook, but the important aspects of art run a whole lot deeper than that.