The Beautiful and the Ugly

The philosophy of aesthetics is an ongoing process and continuously heightens our interest with paradox after paradox.

What is beautiful is ugly and what is ugly is beautiful; perhaps an aesthetic nightmare or perhaps a clue to the sublime; certainly this can evoke some philosophical thinking.

“Il n’est point de serpent ni de monstre odieux
Qui, par l’art imité, ne puisse plaire aux yeux,
D’un pinceau délicat l’artifice agréable
Du plus affreux objet fait un objet aimable.”

Boileau (1636-1711), “L’art poétique” chant 3

My meager translation:

It is not the point that the serpent or hated monster is such which art has imitated, nor is it that this type of art is directly attractive visually; this delicate artistic form is most agreeable to us as the hideous objects become the most pleasant objects.

My friend Paul’s translation:

There is absolutely no loathsome serpent or monster
Which, through the imitation of art, could not be made pleasing to the eye.
From an artist's delicate brush, beguiling artifice
Transforms a most hideous object into a likable one.


The serpent and hated monster, by themselves are most offensive to us, and would be unpleasant for us to experience them, but the delicacy (and genius) of the artistic form as an aesthetic instrument elevates such hideous objects to a pleasant aesthetic experience. The key to all this is the aesthetic instrument itself as it transcends all ugliness and baseness. Paul’s translation does this to the original French. It carries through some of the aesthetic tour de force of the original French. In other words, Paul has, at least in part, given us the beauty of the Boileau verse. He most likely could even put it into English meter-verse form and lend an even more aesthetic result.


Some comments on the beautiful and the ugly:

“Beautiful art shows its superiority in this, that it describes, as beautiful things which may be in nature ugly or displeasing. The Furies, diseases, the devastations of war, etc., may (even regarded as calamitous) be described as very beautiful as they are represented in a picture…” Kant, KU 155 (Critique of Aesthetic Judgment)

“…though the objects themselves may be painful to see, we delight to view the most realistic representations of them in art…” Aristotle, Poetics, 1448b

I welcome any comments.