arrangements do not have, and it is this availability to the senses that is also one of the key features of beauty. . . .
When aesthetic fairness and ethical fairness are both present to perception, their shared commitment to equality can be seen as merely an analogy, for it may truly be said that when both terms of an analogy are present, the analogy is inert. It asks nothing more of us than that we occasionally notice it. But when one term ceases to be visible (either because it is not present, or because it is present but dispersed beyond our sensory field), then the analogy ceases to be inert: the term that is present becomes pressing, active, insistent, calling out for, directing our attention toward, what is absent. I describe this, focusing on touch, as a weight or lever, but ancient and medieval philosophers always referred to it acoustically: beauty is a call.
UNDERSTANDING THE TEXT
What perspectives do the two friends that Scarry mentions in the beginning of this selection add to her understanding of beauty and justice? Why do you think she introduces these perspectives to begin this section of her essay?
What are the "three sites" that our attention falls upon when speaking of a beautiful object? How do these sites provide different perspectives on beauty?
What role does the notion of symmetry play in our understanding of beauty? What role does the same notion play in our understanding of justice?
Why does Scarry believe that symmetry in beauty and symmetry in justice are connected by more than just analogy? Does she believe that they are ultimately the same thing?
Why does Scarry quote Augustine's treatise on music? What is the rhetorical effect of quoting an ancient Christian philosopher to establish the connection between beauty and justice?
Why does Scarry suggest that societies will always perceive symmetry through beauty before they have a concept of justice? What is the primary example that she uses to explain this point?
MAKING CONNECTIONS
How is Scarry's concept of symmetry similar to William Blake's concept of "fearful symmetry" in "The Tyger" (p. 262)? How do they both use the idea that our senses are pleased by symmetrical things?
Scarry references Boethius (p. 242) as an ancient figure who perceived beauty as symmetry. What underlying principles about the role of art do Scarry and Boethius share?
Does Scarry's view of distributive justice—or the belief that resources should be distributed fairly across the social spectrum—support Tolstoy's view that great art must be understandable by everybody (p. 265)? Would Tolstoy accept that some people have more exposure to beauty—and therefore to justice—than other people?
WRITING ABOUT THE TEXT
Analyze the claims that Scarry makes and the support that she offers for those claims. Focus especially on her claim that symmetry is important to both beauty and justice and that the definition of "symmetry" is essentially the same in both contexts.
Consider what kinds of empirical evidence might prove (or disprove) Scarry's claim that people who pay attention to questions of beauty learn how to be more just. Write a paper testing this claim against the evidence that you gather.
Explore the connections between beauty and justice in the essays by Scarry, Mo Tzu (p. 236), and Boethius (p. 242). Look for areas of agreement and disagreement among the three authors.
lisa yuskavage
Babie I
[2003]
LISA YUSKAVAGE (B. 1962) is a contemporary American painter based in New York City. She was born in Pennsylvania and educated at Temple University and Yale University, where she received a Master of Fine Arts degree in 1986. Nearly all of Yuskavage's paintings feature women, often nude, in exaggerated poses or with physically impossible features. Art critics see the cartoonish, fanciful nature of her subjects as a criticism of the unrealistic images of female sexuality that modern culture creates.
A 1999 article in the New York Times described Yuskavage's paintings as "provocative depictions of loose, blase women in colors that glow or sometimes scream." The article continues to summarize the reaction of most art critics to Yuskavage's work:
Critics have described the works, usually in praise, as "anatomically impossible bimbos, nymphets and other female travesties'' and "demonically distorted Kewpie-doll women'' that are "perversely entertaining'' and "visual spectacles.'' Ms. Yuskavage once said she captured the "far-out extension'' of male sex fantasies. To question prevailing views about women and sex is not enough; she wants a reaction, as so many artists of her generation do.
Babie I communicates many of Yuskavage's standard themes through the subject's facial expressions—a plainly dressed young woman clutches a partially wilted bouquet of flowers to her chest. She frowns nervously and glances off to her right as if waiting for something or someone to show up. Her facial features, though exaggerated, do not project a conventional image of beauty.
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lisa yuskavage
Babie I, 2003 (oil on linen).
David Zwirner Art Gallery, New York & London / Courtesy of the artist and David Zwirner. See p. C-6 in the color insert for a full-color reproduction of this image.
UNDERSTANDING THE TEXT
What adjectives would you use to describe the girl in the picture? Would you consider her beautiful, plain, nervous, unattractive, or would you use other words altogether?
Is it significant that her name (according to the title) is "Babie"—a misspelling of the common diminutive "Baby"?
What feeling do the background colors of the painting create? How do the background and foreground colors blend together? Does the girl appear to blend into the background in any way?
Why do you think that the girl is glancing to the side? Is there someone she is waiting for or something that she is expecting to happen? Use your imagination as to what you think this may be.
What do the flowers that she is holding represent? Why does the bouquet appear to be falling apart?
MAKING CONNECTIONS
Would Babie I fit the definition of a "tronie" that Vermeer used when painting Study of a Young Woman (p. 253)? Why or why not? How are the two paintings similar? How are they different?
What do you see as the underlying understanding of "beauty" in Babie I? How is this similar to or different than the understanding of beauty in "Beauty: When the Other Dancer Is the Self" (p. 271)?
WRITING ABOUT THE TEXT
Use your imagination to tell the story of the girl in the painting. Give her a character and a set of motivations, and explain where she is, why she is there, and what she might be expecting to happen next.
Compare or contrast Babie I with Vermeer's Study of a Young Woman. Explain the way both artists approach their subjects and the understanding of female beauty that each painting seems to convey.
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SCIENCE AND NATURE
How Can We Best Understand the Natural World?