What a fascinating idea - to make ourselves ugly for art’s sake. And I’m trying to think of writers and artists who have done that. There are some obvious examples, I’m sure - Bukowski, Soutine, Egon Schiele ... I’m thinking a lot about Schiele at the moment, and the most telling thing I’ve read about him recently was that while his pictures are outwardly striking, what really sets him apart is his understanding of anatomy. Not in the technical sense, but that he understood the bone beneath the skin. Maybe there’s something there, in that it’s easy to display the superficially grotesque, but to display the bone and nerves and sinew beneath the skin takes a different sort of courage.
Yes. I love this and will be thinking about it. I find Schiele really beautiful, and maybe the beauty comes from the anatomical structure that's always visible. I think he's really aligned with performance artists too in that there's that understanding of what it looks like to a viewer too. But yes, I think it's essential the writer allows themselves to be ugly and flawed, otherwise how can we search for the same in others with any kind of authority?
What a fascinating idea - to make ourselves ugly for art’s sake. And I’m trying to think of writers and artists who have done that. There are some obvious examples, I’m sure - Bukowski, Soutine, Egon Schiele ... I’m thinking a lot about Schiele at the moment, and the most telling thing I’ve read about him recently was that while his pictures are outwardly striking, what really sets him apart is his understanding of anatomy. Not in the technical sense, but that he understood the bone beneath the skin. Maybe there’s something there, in that it’s easy to display the superficially grotesque, but to display the bone and nerves and sinew beneath the skin takes a different sort of courage.
Yes. I love this and will be thinking about it. I find Schiele really beautiful, and maybe the beauty comes from the anatomical structure that's always visible. I think he's really aligned with performance artists too in that there's that understanding of what it looks like to a viewer too. But yes, I think it's essential the writer allows themselves to be ugly and flawed, otherwise how can we search for the same in others with any kind of authority?
This is really great
this is so good Ali. Your best instalment yet.