Philosopher Roger Scruton presents a provocative essay on the importance of beauty in art and, more broadly, in our lives.
According to Scruton, the 1920s marked the point at which society turned its back on beauty. Art, architecture, and music have since followed a trend toward ugliness, leading us into a spiritual desert.
By drawing on philosophers such as Plato and Kant, and through conversations with artists Michael Craig-Martin and Alexander Stoddart, Scruton examines where art went wrong and presents his own passionate argument for restoring beauty to its traditional place at the center of our civilization. If you had asked people between 1750 and 1930 to describe the purpose of poetry, art, or music, they would have answered: beauty.
And if you had asked what the point of beauty was, they would have told you that beauty is a value, as important as truth and goodness. In the 1920s, beauty ceased to matter. The growing purpose of art became to shock and to break moral taboos. The highest priority became originality, and originality was pursued regardless of the moral cost.
Not only has art made a cult of ugliness, but architecture has also become soulless and sterile. Nor is it only the physical environment that has become ugly. Our language, our music, and our customs have changed dramatically, becoming increasingly self-centered and provocative, as though beauty and good taste no longer deserve a central place in our lives.
If we lose beauty as a value, we risk losing the meaning of life along with it.
The importance of beauty
