Absolute Beauty (#3 part 1 and 2)

Part I

What is "beauty"? How can we define a tangible example of something "beautiful"? In Anne Wysocki's chapter "The Sticky Embrace of Beauty" we delve deeper into these questions. Wysocki centralizes this chapter on an advertisement she stumbled across in the New Yorker. The advertisement both evoked both an appreciation and anger from Wysocki.

Wysocki argues that when interpreting a "text" (both written and/or visual pictures) many of us fall short in an analytical understanding. If one cannot understand how to interpreter a text, one will also be unable to teach others how to do so. "I'll be arguing that approaches many of us now use for teaching the visual aspects of texts are incomplete and, in fact, may work against helping students acquire critical and thoughtful agency with the visual, precisely because these approaches cannot account for a lot of what's going on in the Peek [the New Yorker's advertisement] composition" (Wysocki, 149). Wysocki is saying that there are many shortcomings in the approaches we use to critiquing a visual text. The elements of color, composition, or graphic design may explain the feeling of appreciation or pleasure from Wysocki when looking at this text, but these elements do not explain the feeling of anger. In the mind of Wysocki, this is an unacceptable limitation.

In order for Wysocki to prove her point of these shortcomings, she uses several examples from well acclaimed, design books. She speaks of design principles such as "contrast, repetition, alignment and proximity" (Wysocki, 150) and how these direct our eyes. "Visual layout is not magic but is instead rationally organized and can be formally analyzed" (Wysocki, 151). She argues that layout is like an equation. By applying a clear visual ladder, any text can appear professional(paraphrase, Wysocki, 150-151). Layout can be very similar to algebra. An author or creator of the text just simply needs the tools/equation (i.e. contrast or repetition) to get the correct answer or a "professional" look. This makes layout cognitive and sterile. This supports Wysocki's argument of not be able to explain her feeling of anger towards the text. These elements may be able to explain her feeling of appreciation but falls short when dealing with the emotion of anger.

Wysocki continues to delve into popular ways of understanding visual texts, but then encourages her readers to not merely focus on form (or formal approaches of interpretation of a text) and stop there, but to begin shape a new way of "looking" at a text. "I am not at all comfortable in using these approaches as they come, by themselves, unchanged... we could teach contrast and repetition and centering and other formal terms that show up in other texts about visual design, and then augment our teaching with texts that help students and us question how photographs teach us about gender and race and class" (Wysocki, 158). She is beckoning her audience into the idea of allowing ourselves to step into not just form but "content (gender and raced bodies, for example)" (Wysocki, 158).
Wysocki continues to poke holes in the formal approach and opinions. One of her strongest rebuttal's is to Kant's case that beauty is absolute. She paraphrases Kant by saying, "When we judge something to be beautiful, it is because beauty is formal inherent in the object" (Wysocki, 164). She refutes this by saying Kant is completely ignoring the fact that he has a perception developed by his context in life (where he grew up, being a male, etc.) not the context of others (paraphrase, Wysocki, 164). Kant is viewing the world and it's elements through a lens that has developed based on his circumstances. Things may be viewed differently by others based on how their lens was shaped.

Wrapping up the chapter, Wysocki's gives her readers a call to action. She wants us to begin to reteach students that beauty is not absolute but relative. "We should look on these formal approaches with anger, and we should be working to change them...I want people in my classes, then, to learn the social and temporal expectations of visual composition so that they can, eventually, perhaps, change some of the results of those expectations (Wysocki, 169, 172). Beauty should bind us together not make us feel distant and cold. A mother pushing her daughter on the swing is a genuine beauty that we relate to and feel close to, no airbrushing required.


Part II

1.) When speaking of the advertisement in the New Yorker, Wysocki states, "Such a formal beauty has nothing to do with me or with you" (Wysocki, 167). Form forces our definition of beauty into a box. Wysocki's feeling of anger is because society has told her what is beautiful instead of her discovering on her own. I suppose I have never thought of how images in magazine, on billboards, etc. have shaped my "view" of beauty. Formal beauty rarely evokes a positive feeling inside of me. I usually only feel jealousy or frustration with myself. Wysocki's statement is so true it has nothing to do with me. We must push past our traditional critiques and judgements into a realm of how texts can shape our feelings or opinions, and then we can shape our own feelings and opinions. We must refuse to be spoon fed the definition of what beauty is.

2.) "We often speak as if beauty were a property of objects. Some people or artworks "have it" and some do not. [Instead...] Beauty is an unstable property because it is not a property at all" (Wysocki, 169). We often subconsciously see beauty in a tangible, solid form. This is beautiful and that is not. Wysocki wants us to not see beauty as a tangible object (as if beauty were another element on the periodical table) but something that suggests a special relation between it and our self. Today, men are often reprimanded for treating women like "a piece of meat" or an object instead of a soul. If advertisement and media continues to publish these formal types of beauty as an object these two forces will grate against each other. We are being told two separate ideas. How can we begin to teach the younger generations that people are a "he/she" not a "that" if the media continues to force beauty to be a tangible property (i.e. a woman with big breast an blond hair or a man with tan skin and a rock solid stomach). Wysocki begs us as readers to ask the question, "Am I going to accept media's view of "beauty" or will I ask myself, 'What do I think is beautiful?'"