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Can something ugly be great art?
Goya's black paintings, a scream in a symphony, a novel built to bore you. Some of the most admired work is hard to enjoy.
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A little context
You turn a corner in a museum and find a crucifixion painted so cruelly that you want to look somewhere else. The label calls it one of the treasures of the collection, and you suspect the label is right. Whatever makes it great, it isn't that it's pleasant to look at.
Nearby questions
- Does knowing change it?A piece of writing moves you to tears. Then you learn a machine wrote every word. Does that change it?
- What would you still love if no one could ever see you loving it?Private pleasure, public approval, and the preferences that survive without an audience.
- The aura on your screenYou know the Sistine Chapel from images. If you went, what exactly would you be going for?
- The blade and the canvasIf you were angry enough at what it stood for, could you ever be right to put a blade through a painting?
- Can you separate the art from the artist?The work that changed your life was made by someone who did terrible things. Nothing in it has changed, except what you know.
