JRussell

Why is it so important that you make a stand against ugly art? Because ugly art seeks to subvert your very perception of beauty, and your ability to recognize beauty is inseparable from your capacity to recognize the divine. (It's no coincidence that in the "art" shown below, you'll find a disturbing, twisted corruption of a crucifix). C.S. Lewis demonstrates how ugly art corrupts a person in his book "That Hideous Strength." As part of his conditioning to remove his emotional responses by the sinister organization "N.I.C.E," protagonist Mark Studdock is forced to get used to a windowless room filled with nonsensical architecture and ugly art. On the walls are grotesque, creepy images: a hyper-real portrait of a young woman whose mouth is stuffed with hair; a giant mantis playing a fiddle while being eaten by another mantis; and a vile distortion of the Last Supper, with beetles crawling beneath the table. The ugly art is intended to kill his basic human reactions and erode his ability to make value judgments: to recognize good from bad, virtue from vice, or beautiful from ugly. Spend too much time surrounded by ugliness, and it has a dulling effect on this especially human part of you — eventually, it erodes your ability to properly recognize anything of value. Mark ultimately turns against N.I.C.E when he refuses to trample on a crucifix. Not because he's a Christian (he isn't yet), but because it is inherently ugly and evil nonetheless. The beauty we include in our lives is not neutral, nor is it trivial. Resist ugly art and call it out for what it is.