In his Poetics*, Aristotle lays the seeds for a discourse of the aesthetics of the ugly, which will bloom in the nuanced analysis in Lessing’s Laocoon**. Though Lessing expands this discourse to the realm of visual art; he remains very committed to Aristotelian principles. Like his philosophical forbearer, Lessing warns against the misuse and abuse of the ugly, the horrific and the disfigured. Like Aristotle, he makes room for the ugly in art, finding in art a cathartic power similar to what we find chez Aristotle. The ugly provides something similar yet different for both Lessing and Aristotle. For both thinkers, it can provide an indirect way to experience the horrific. For Aristotle, the experience of tragedy serves an exemplary function; for Lessing, art carves out a place where man can experience terror the horrors he dare not confront directly in the world.
The discussion of the ugly in Aristotle is imbedded in his wider analysis of tragedy. For Aristotle, tragedy serves a very human function; through mimesis, tragedy allows us to understand the logic of an action and makes us virtuous citizen through catharsis.
In chapter four of the Poetics, Aristotle discusses the origin of poetry, while showing artistic invention to be a fundamentally human activity. He refers to morbid fascination:
“Mimesis is innate in human beings from childhood- indeed we differ from the other animals in being most given to mimesis and in making our first steps of learning through it – and pleasure in instances of mimesis is equally general. This we can see from the facts: we enjoy looking at the most exact portrayals of things we do not like to see in real life, the lowest animals, for instance, or corpses. This is because not only philosophers, but all men, enjoy getting to understand something, though it is true that most people feel this pleasure only to a slight degree.” (1448a: 4)
Aristotle links mimesis to our desire for knowledge, a desire so bottomless that it delights even in the ugly and rotting: in worms and corpses. “Exact portrayal” of the natural is how he views mimesis as operating. And while his theory of tragedy does contain more complexity than the merely imitative, imitation is the unshakable base on which the entire discourse is constructed. As such, it may not come as too much surprise that Aristotle feels ugliness – which is very present in the world – has a rightful place in mimesis. The guidelines he sets to tragedy have the effect, first and foremost, of providing a manual for constructing an effective drama; but they also provide a warning against a misappropriation of the ugly in art. In other words, Aristotle want to put ugliness in its right place.
Aristotle speaks of the six mimetic elements of tragedy: plot, character, verbal expression, intellect, spectacle and song writing. These first three are here of interest to us, and Aristotle discusses them all in one breathless sentence.
“Well then, a tragedy is a mimesis of a high, complete action (complete in the sense that implies amplitude) in speech pleasurably enhanced, the different kinds [of enchantment] occurring in separate sections, in dramatic, not narrative form, effecting through pity and fear the catharsis of such emotions.” (Poetics 1449b).
A thorough discussion of catharsis is beyond the scope of this paper, although I will make reference to it now and again. First, however, a word of explanation for the following terms: “complete action,” “speech pleasurably enhanced” and “pity and fear.”
By “complete action,” Aristotle means that the proper subject of tragedy is a “complete, whole action” that will make clear the nature of the characters’ moral choices. This completeness requires, by necessity, that ugly elements be exhibited. In plays like Oedipus and Medea, the actions which are the subject of mimesis – infanticide, incest – ain’t pretty. Thus, Aristotle is providing an justification for the horrific in tragedy. Certainly, this need not be made explicit on stage (i.e., Medea doesn’t need to chase her children around with an axe), but Aristotle is carving out a space for the horrific in art while at the same time remaining committed to the idea of art being in the service of the beautiful.
Equally influential for later theoreticians like Lessing, is the notion of “speech pleasurably enhanced” to smooth over the rough-spots in the drama. We find here a claim about the sanitizing role of art. Art can dress the ugly up, transform and transfigure it. It can provide its own unique vision of the ugly: pleasing to the eye and the ear. The case of tragedy, especially, illustrates that this is both a privilege and duty of art.
Pity and fear are the pleasurable emotions that tragedy aims to stir up. Ideally, these two emotions should be aroused directly by the mimesis of the action; when things occur “unexpectedly but because of each other” (1495a). The perfectly ordered and designed parts of such a narrative are the flipside of the ugliness and horror of the plot itself. Thus the tragedy gains in power from the ironic coexistence of beautiful form with horrific content.
Pity and fear can be aroused by peripeteiai, recognition and pathos. These first two, Aristotle calls the “most attractive parts of tragedy” since they are elements fundamentally of plot. The third source is pathos, which he defines as “an act involving destruction or pain.” In other words, pathos is the element in tragedy directly linked to the ugly and horrific. It is the domain not only of the poet but also of the stage designer, whose art “contributes more to the spectacle than the poet’s does” (1450b). But though fear and pity may be aroused by spectacle alone, he claims that it is more effective when the poet has a hand in it. Aristotle’s fear of a gruesome spectacle (think: a chamber of horrors) overwhelming the narrative and poetic elements of a production are undeniable. He warns that a misappropriation of the ugly will result in something “merely monstrous,” rather than genuinely tragic.
Through an analogy with painting, Aristotle advocates mimesis as a heightened state of imitation. When applied to the concept of the ugly in art, this analogy provides a rationale for the sanitizing effects of exaggeration in art upon the horrific.
“Since tragedy is a mimesis of people better than are found in the world, one ought to do the same as the good figure-painters, for they too give us the individual form, but though they make people lifelike they represent them as more beautiful than they are. Similarly the poet too in representing people as irascible and lazy and morally deficient in other ways like that, ought nevertheless to make them good, as Homer makes Achilles both good and an example of harsh self-will.” (1454b)
Like “speech pleasurably enhanced,” art is to soften and smooth over the features of true ugliness.
After discussing mimesis, pity, fear and pathos, we come to catharsis, which is the telos of tragedy. For Aristotle, tragedy serves a very human function; it allows us to understand the logic of our actions and makes us virtuous citizen through catharsis born of mimesis. Mimesis is of course the fundamental point of departure for art and tragedy. By making us aware of the logic of our actions, tragedy develops our virtue. As we have seen, the ugly can and often does take part in this project.
Much of Lessing’s discourse of the ugly in art maps on to Aristotle. Lessing quotes the passage in the Poetics where Aristotle talks about mimesis of the ugly and calls it “no argument in favor of the imitation of ugliness.” The dead bodies that Aristotle spoke of can excite terror that can heighten aesthetic sensation. “This terror, not their ugliness, may be made to produce sensations of pleasure through imitation” (p. 155). Lessing makes a distinction between the “ugliness” of the animals and the corpses and the “terror” that is excited through that ugliness. This may ultimately be a false dichotomy, but it serves Lessing well in his purpose, which is to show the instances in which ugliness may be mobilized by art to produce an aesthetic sensation. “Ugliness in itself can be no subject for poetry,” yet it can contribute to art’s overall effect.
“The poet can make ugliness his theme only because it acquires through his description a less repulsive aspect, and ceases in a measure to produce the effect of ugliness,” Lessing writes (p. 148). Art has a sanitizing effect on the ugly similar to the one Aristotle suggests when he speaks of “speech pleasurably enhanced.” The idea of art enhancing and transforming is pervasive throughout the Laocoon.
Lessing particularizes about art to a degree that Aristotle does not: discussing the ugly in relation to the built-in limitations of the mediums. In his lengthy exegesis on the Laocoon sculpture he discusses the limitation of the medium for exhibiting the ugly. At one point, he puts it thusly:
“If it be true that a cry, as an expression of bodily pain, is not inconsistent with nobility of soul, especially according to the views of the ancient Greeks, then the desire to represent such a soul cannot be the reason why the artist has refused to imitate this cry in his marble.” (p. 7)
This quote is all about the need to sanitize art by stripping it of its unsavory elements. “Pain, in its disfiguring extreme, was not compatible with beauty and therefore must be softened,” he writes. Had the sculptors depicted the scream, the statue would lack the “beauty which alone could turn our pain into the sweet feeling of pity for the suffering object” (p. 13-14). In other words, just like Aristotle’s over-zealous stage director, a more gruesome Laocoon, would have resulted in “mere monstrosities.” Ugliness, in other words, should always be deployed in the service of tragic beauty, and not for its own sake.
The suggestion that the ugly and horrific threatens and constrains the laws of the beautiful becomes central for Lessing. This is manifest in the example of the Laocoon itself and many other examples drawn from poetry, painting and statuary. How to deal with the ugly in the visual arts has to do with concealing the actual ugliness and relying on the imagination to fill in. The Pregnant Moment, the moment “most suggestive of what has gone before and what is to follow” arrives to solve this difficulty (p. 92).
Lessing illustrates this through the example of the Laocoon, as well as a painting of Medea at the moment just before her infanticide. “We anticipate the result and tremble at the idea of soon seeing Medea in her unmitigated ferocity, our imagination far outstripping any thing the painter could have shown us of that terrible moment” (p. 18). Through a veil of concealment, the horrific and ugly are amplified above and beyond what mere revealing could have accomplished.
The role of the ugly and the horrific is no doubt central to the power of the Medea painting. That this ugliness need be hidden in order to become manifest is seen by Lessing as another limitation of art in dealing with the ugly. It arises from the natural fact that the “poet shows us in the process of creation, what the painter can only show us as already existing” (p. 100). Aside from this example of being vs. becoming, there are further limits imposed by medium. Often, one need sacrifice “expression to beauty” and even “conventionality to expression” (p. 41). Lessing, like Aristotle, understands the value and instrumentality of exaggeration. These sacrifices are therefore forgivable and unavoidable, mimetically-speaking.
Throughout the essay, Lessing details the ways in which painting may make use of ugliness and deformity without offending or nauseating the audience. Ugliness and the horrific can evoke the ridiculous, the terrible and the fascinating (p. 156). When they do so, “they never arouse pure pain:” rather the bitterness is always mixed with satisfaction (p. 158).
Lessing concludes that it is possible for the poet to produce “mixed sensations” that can be “strengthened by the use of ugliness” (p. 161). At the same time, however, he wants to limit its role and scope. The ugly is a strong spice and the artist must take care not to overdo it: “Painting does not employ loathsomeness for its own sake, but, like poetry, to give emphasis to the ludicrous and the terrible. At its peril!” Lessing goes on to define this peril as a cheap sensationalist trick whose shock value wears off quickly leaving nothing but abject disgust, “loathsome in all its crudity” (p. 167).
This warning brings us back to Aristotle and his caveat against the stage designer hijacking a play. Lessing, no doubt, opens the door a bit wider for the ugly, horrific and loathsome than Aristotle does, but he will not lend it his unconditional endorsement. At the end of the day, both Aristotle and Lessing maintain a rather precarious stance towards the ugly in art. Though they both realize its instrumentality and utility in realizing the telos of mimetic art, they remain wary of whole-heartedly endorsing it. But their studies provide insights into the nature of art that complicate our ordinary concepts of the beautiful and the good. Through the analyses of both thinkers, we come to a position where we acknowledge the utility of the ugly for art, as well as its dangers.
For Aristotle, the ugly plays a crucial role in tragedy and the evocation of fear and pity. These emotions, brought about by peripeteiai, recognition and pathos, produce moments of catharsis, where the elements of tragedy culminate in a deep understanding of the logic of our actions. Tragedy can be seen as an attempt at making sense of the world and, in the process, of edifying the public. In more ways than one, the ugly takes part in this demystification and edification.
Lessing picks up and elaborates on Aristotle’s discourse on the mimesis of ugliness and its cathartic value. Although he contributes a much richer and more nuanced theory of the ugly, he can be said to still be operating very much in an Aristotelian framework. Catharsis is very much at stake in his assessment of art. Like Aristotle, Lessing sees art as a way of confronting horror indirectly. In this, he is much more explicit than Aristotle in this and treats the broad problem of the ugly more closely.
Who, indeed, would deny that, “things horrible are not wholly devoid of charm” (p. 165)?
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