While at work and obscenely bored today, I ended up digging through WikiSource in search of something mildly interesting. I ended up stumbling upon 'Pulchrism: Championing Beauty as the Purpose of Art', an amusing self-published manifesto by Jesse Waugh who has opinions about what beauty is. To Jesse, beauty is objective. He feels very passionately about this, to the point that he wrote and published(?) this manifesto. I include the question mark because his publisher, Carpophage Press, appears to be a vanity publisher he owns himself. I'm not sure what it is about this little manifesto that pulls me to write a whole screed about it, but I can't help myself.
Jesse wants everybody to care a lot about Pulchrism (god the name is so bad) and claims "The Pulchrist Manifesto has been recognized as a significant historical art manifesto", which is kind of sad in how untrue it is. Poor guy. The manifesto itself isn't very well written, as a screed against the "fascists" who believe beauty is subjective, and in opposition declaring beauty clearly objective and the "purpose of art". He makes insanely confident claims like "Aestheticism and Art Nouveau were most definitely pro-beauty to one degree or another" while backing up his statements with citations pointing to, in that last case, what appear to be coffee table books.
The biggest problem with Pulchrism is that Jesse never ever defines beauty. Beauty is "not ugly", it is "a given", it is "the purpose of art", but it is never really definable. Of course, some things are generally considered more beautiful than other things - a rose is more beautiful than a dog poo. Whether beauty is objective or subjective is an age-old argument. To Jesse, a hardcore objectivist, beauty is an inherent quality that people find in certain things. Unfortunately for Jesse, there's an entire line of philosophy full of people who have been thinking about this for thousands of years, and he's not really bringing anything new to the table that hasn't been thought of before. Nor does he make a good case for objective beauty, as he mostly devolves into common sense logic and name-calling.
"their[sic] simply must be some agreement amongst people in general that the sun setting over the sea is beautiful. Does this not suggest some sort of objectivity to beauty?"
Not really, Jesse, no. Sorry. The sun setting over the sea is beautiful because people agree it's beautiful, and they agree it's beautiful because... well... it's beautiful, okay? It just is. Jesse can't say what this underlying essence is, he's just convinced it's there.
Beyond being unhappy that fascists are destroying art by making unpretty works, Jesse is angry about conferences too. Talking about the 2015 Oxford college "Making Sense of Beauty: The Beauty Project" conference, he says:
"Something tells me that if I go to that conference and state my sincere belief that Beauty is objective and absolute, I will be crucified by relativists who only give the slightest lip-service to the possibility that the 20th century excommunication of Beauty might have been a giant, colossal mistake, and I will also be ostracized for behaving in any sort of an assertive, masculine manner, which behaviour will be seen as suspect and potentially dangerous."
It's not clear what the 'something' is that tells him all this, except his own assumptions. Jesse is making up a guy to be mad at, in spectacular fashion. If anything, I can imagine him going to the conference and being given a lot of thin-lipped smiles as people nod their heads and tolerate his ravings, calling him a knob in private afterwards as god intended.
The crowning glory of the manifesto is in the final chapter, a full paragraph of truly incredible writing:
"Beauty is objective." No citation needed, it would seem.
"Beauty can be decided upon by individuals and by consensus." Now hold on, I thought that was what subjectivity was!?
"Beauty can be seen by masses of people who instinctively agree upon it."
"Beauty is only relative to sick, dishonest or gullible minds." If you disagree with Jesse, you're simply morally evil! Truly incredible.
"Not everyone will agree on everything, but most will agree that certain things are beautiful: flowers, sunsets, stars, waterfalls, butterflies, the healthy human body, etc." This objectivity is seeming awfully relative...
"Frankly anyone who cannot see beauty in these things is mistaken or incapacitated in one way or another." :)
Pulchrism is kind of sad, and I feel some sympathy for the author. He has peppered his own oil paintings throughout the manifesto, and they're not Terrible, but I would describe them as naive. They're mostly flat paintings of butterflies, flowers and still life, with an amateur air and no clear direction or theme. I don't want to get too armchair psychologist, but I wonder if Jesse felt that people weren't seeing the beauty he was so sure he was painting. I'm afraid I don't see it either, Jesse.