I would not object to the analogy but rather the framing of it. Noting, whom we are to take to be, a beautiful person's judgment that she does not find other so beautiful people to be sexy or attractive is indeed a commonplace but the banality of it comes the formulation that somehow despite the fact these people are judged beautiful they are not found sexy. But that formulation just misses the distinction in the observation, that attractiveness is just not a function of beauty. What appeals to us sexually in others is not degrees of outward beauty. Instead the classic thought that beauty as something attributed to the person or the object independent of its appealing features (or behaviors or whatever in the case of the person) is apt. So a model human being (say according to the classical model of beauty as an example) might strike me as beautiful, and it surely is a different experience than seeing a woman and feeling attracted (or just aroused). Drawn here is the analogous difference between an appealing or pretty painting and a beautiful painting (to follow William's distinction). I would expect it is obvious that understanding beauty as merely a synonym for pretty or "really pretty" is mistaken. I have only seen reproductions of the Goyas mentioned, but there are countless other examples with such a tension. To take a contemporary, though not strictly such, Turner's paintings of the burning of parliament come to mind (or at least the ones I have seen such as at the Cleveland Museum of Art--I'd expect Saul to know this one--, and the Tate Modern. I am aware he painted several more). The Turner at CMA at least is beautiful but a violent spectacle; I do not find it particularly pleasing. Turner's disaster pictures are generally described as purely sublime, but the parliament burning painting at CMA does not strike me with such subtle terror (unlike his shipwrecks). In contrast with the shipwrecks, the fire light's movement draws attention to the painting as such, it's like an exploding sunset but not as luminous as his natural ones. The brushstrokes are quite rough, contrasts are starker than his harbor scenes, smoke feels ubiquitous, but like many increasingly "impressionistic" paintings after it, the subject recedes into the background.
Then again I think his Harbor of Dieppe (at the Frick) is also quite beautiful, a work that seems to light half of the gallery in which it hangs. Painted almost 10 years before the burning of parliament, the colors (especially in the water) are intricate and saturated, its detail just more layered and effective. -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Monday, April 28, 2008 9:20 PM To: [email protected] Subject: Re: Beauty? I think not! What I claim is less banal are the implications of the parallel between excitations of sexual response and the excitation of "aesthetic" response. Alberti's measuring techniques simply could not take into account the many unmeasurable elements that somehow make a person "interesting", attractive, sexy. Indeed, it was said that much of Belmondo's "atractiveness" derived from his broken nose. Alberti would have trouble explaining that.
