Definition of ugliness according to
WordReference (yes, again, it’s turning into my best friend): “unpleasant
or repulsive in appearance”.
If you agree with that then
everybody should take as an example that horror on four legs I stumbled upon a
couple of weeks ago about.
I was walking around Yaletown with a
friend of mine on a Friday night, when my attention was caught by that “thing”
I saw beyond the glass door of a condo hall. The intent was probably to create
a sort of lamp out of the ordinary, but the result was a real obscenity:
introducing the lamp-horse (or maybe the horse-lamp, readers, please assist me).
It was such a horrid thing that I
couldn’t resist to take a picture of that and to write this post now. Even
another chap stopped by at the entrance of the condo to take a photo, obviously attracted by the bad taste of that
object, as confirmed by his words.
I am not an aesthete, but coming
from the land of Michelangelo and Leonardo my deep nature as human being got
really shaken and upset, also considering that “un-art” was placed in full view
of the pedestrians, illuminated by the hall lights. If I were a parent I would
just cover the eyes of my children.
I don’t want to start an erudite disquisition
over beauty vs. ugliness, but I believe the former may indeed be also something simple, whereas the latter must always be complex at some extent,
involving a wicked intelligence that on purpose makes something resulting in a
punch on the eyes. Ugliness is not about combining two things opposite each
other, as to the contrary it can give an original contrast highlighting a
specific characteristic or detail, but rather the combination of two or more
things totally disconnected each other, like a lamp and a horse. Really, what
does have to do a lamp with a horse?
City of contrasts Vancouver, where the beautiful scenario of parks and
skyscrapers just clashes with the syringes of east downtown, and where the
simple beauty of rock balancing is compensated by the complex ugliness
of the luminous horse.
