Alexis De Guzman

ENG 110C

Prof. Emerson

April 26, 2018

The Art of Beauty: How The Art of Beauty is Needed With Supporting Arguments From The Book of Life, John Armstrong, and Taylor Williams

Am I beautiful? Are you? How do we know? What do we look for? These are questions asked every day by billions of people. Beauty isn’t as simple as a yes or a no, though. What people see as beautiful, figuratively speaking, is up to each individual, but in reality society prescribes humanity a narrow definition for understanding beauty. John Armstrong discusses how ideally beauty is seen specifically in two different parts by everyone in their own way in his essay “La Bella Vita”. Armstrong focuses on what and why something is defined as beautiful. Through the art of beauty we learn to express ourselves each in our own unique way, society has to stop being so loud in it’s opinions that keep lettings us forget this. Instead of pursuing society’s narrow prescription for beauty, it’s better for each one of us to pursue our unique version of beautiful, whether it be with makeups, tattoos, or anything, we can access this beauty by understanding how beauty works.

 Society is so harsh and cruel in how they are so quick to judge, pick apart people, and point out their flaws, yet we are all so influenced by it. Many of us feel this pressure to be perfect, to be Barbie and Ken, to be something we are completely not. We want to be a picture perfect beautiful from every angle. We want to be the most beautiful, but we take that advice from society, something so hideous and fake. The advertisement industry paints this picture of meadows, flowers, and everyone loves everyone. The School of Life has a video called “What it art for?”, reminding us all of why we look for beauty in the first place. School of life says this flowery-sunshine art is the kind of art that we need in their video when they say, “It’s an emblem of hope, which is an achievement. Prettiness, those flowers and blue skies and kids in meadows is hope bottled and preserved waiting for us, when we need it.” But is this what we really need? Pretty scenes to give us hope?

When art, true art is discovered, it hits you, and you feel it. We can use these moments with art to better understand the beauty we need to seek in ourselves Like Armstrong talks about, you have a drives towards it. He talks about a, “sense drive, which lives in the moment and seeks immediate gratification.” This explains the immediate connections and pull that one has when viewing something truly beautiful to them. On the other hand, Armstrong talked bout a, “form drive, he inner demand for coherence over time, fro abstract understanding and rational order.” This explains why we are attracted to the same types of beautiful time and time again. These two drives come together Armstrong says, “both drives are at full power, but they do not work against one another. Instead they co-operate.” When doing this Armstrong explains, is when you find the true beauty in what your looking at and defining to be beautiful in the first place.

Society takes the paint brush and paints what your “supposed” to see when you look for beauty. When you look at your life. When you look at yourself. You’re supposed to see nothing less than a model staring back at you. Society does this when they really should be painting a mirror. Society and social media puts themselves out to be the most loving people, teaching everyone to be unique and different, but if you aren’t the right type of “different” or “unique”, then you’re wrong. You’re foolish. You’re certainly not beautiful. But this is wrong, and everyone who acknowledges that, is pointed out to be ugly because otherwise wouldn’t they just be silent because they fit in anyway?   Armstrong, as mentioned before, has focused in his essay on why we see the things we see as beautiful, beautiful. He writes, “The only popular thought about beauty today, the one that has the widest currency in the world, is the idea that beauty lies in the eye of the beholder.” Most of us would like to believe that this is the way that we think, but this is just not true, People live off their phones and social media. People have post notifications turned on to alert them what new was posted, what can they do to have that status. To have someone turn post notifications on for them.

Society conveys that we are all perfect and caring to one another when we are not. Many of us, including myself, are sucked into thinking we need to be a certain way to be seen as even remotely beautiful. Society should practice what is preaches and love. Society needs to learn the deeper meaning of beauty, that not everyone is meant to be the same. Everyone makes their own kind of beautiful. Actually let everyone be who they want to be, and express themselves they way they want to that makes them feel beautiful and support them for it, like the big happy family it puts itself out to be.

Makeup is one way that people express themselves. When it is not being taken advantage of by the majorly influential clutches of society it is very powerful and can be used to show beauty in breathtaking ways. Many brands of makeup are advertised in front of us everyday, whether it be by social media ads, magazines, or television commercials, it always seems to be able to slip itself right in front of us to see. With it always being noticable, it has a very powerful platform. Society has made it part of their own, and if you’re not doing it right, don’t wear it at all. But again, this is wrong. This is extremely wrong because everyone has their own kind of right. Similar to what Armstrong says in his text, “popular thought about beauty today, the one that has the widest currency in the world, is the idea that beauty lies in the eye of the beholder.” Everyone has different ideas about what is beautiful. People feel happy to be able to express themselves in their own way, their own kind of art that they need.

One makeup brand chose this route, a route to help people express themselves in own way, help them to be happily unique and feel beautiful about it. CoverGirl released an ad for foundation in February of 2018. The model in the commercial has a skin condition called vitiligo, where parts of her face have white patches even though she was african american. The model used a dark as well as a light foundation to bring out her flaws and embrace them. The slogan for the ad is, “Why try to blend in when you can choose how to stand out.”. This person is choosing to bring out what society may define as a flaw, or ugly, or wrong. She is being her own unique and

her own beautiful, she is even a model. Armstrong talks about this in his essay similarly when he says, “experiences of beauty teach us how we should be. Not that we should try to adopt the pose or hairstyle of Apollo, or to pick up a bow and arrow. Rather, we should seek to realise in ourselves the fusion of the drives embodied by the sculpture.”. He says what is right, that we shouldn’t try to mimic society, but instead be inspired by it to embrace our own selves and our own beautiful factors. Many of us hide and follow society’s judgments while people like this model, Winnie Harlow, have embraced their flaws, ignored society’s cruel words, and are seen as absolutely stunning.

Beauty is amazing, and being able to carry your own kind of beautiful without fear that society will criticize you for it is even better. Instead of gaining fear we gain happiness. This happiness helps us carry on when we are hit with struggling times. My peers and I explored many types of art and the different impacts they had on each of us. Most always did we have a personal connection to the art we explored. A peer, Taylor Williams, discussed  the art behind tattoos and how they act as

motivation to keep her friend going in life. Similar to the idea that beauty helps to provide a happiness to help us carry on, Taylor William’s friend she interviewed for her “Let’s talk about art project” talked about how her tattoos help her during her struggling times. She said “it’s a reminder that no matter how I may be feeling or what circumstance I’m facing, there is a better day to come and that I will rise above any challenge life throws my way.”. This is her own kind of beautiful, her way of expressing herself that helps her keep going when she is struggling.

Whether on chooses to express themselves with makeup, tattoos, or anything at all, one needs it to express themselves to find their own happy. We need this art of beauty to keep in touch with ourselves to help motivate us in times of struggle. Society needs to change and start practicing what it preaches. To start understanding that beauty is more important than a written standard.

 

Works Cited

Armstrong, John. “La bella vita.” Aeon, 14 Feb. 2014,
https://aeon.co/essays/can-beauty-help-us-to-become-better-people. Accessed 26 April. 2018.

CoverGirl. TruBlend Foundation Commercial. 20 Feb. 2018. YouTube.
https://youtu.be/9uSe4KYt6zY Accessed 26 April. 2018.

Hallbeck, Chris. “Judgemental Eyes” Funny Center. http://funnycenter.net/
Accessed 26 April. 2018. Cartoon.

The Book of Life. What is Art For? TheBookOfLife. http://www.thebookoflife.org/what-is-art-for/
Accessed 26 April. 2018.

Williams, Taylor. “Let’s Talk About Art”. UNE. Biddeford. 3 April 2018. Oral.