Above is Calvin Klein (CK)'s newly launched model, Jari Jones, who has multiple identities: actress, model, producer, writer, transgender...
The spirit of the times has always echoed with fashion, and no matter which dimension is displayed, it is a means of expression that responds to social needs. Since the 20th century, popular aesthetics have gradually abandoned a single aesthetic tendency and formed a relationship of chasing each other in a maze with the aesthetic ideals of the media industry. The selection of models by CK also reflects another tentacle of today's society to explore diversified aesthetics.
As Echo used the vast amount of artistic knowledge and historical reserves in "The History of Beauty" to tell the ambiguous multi-layered relationship between beauty, art and the spirit of the times: "People who visit avant-garde art exhibitions buy sculptures that they cannot understand, and those who participate in 'occasional' art activities wear makeup according to the fashionable canon." They wear jeans or designer clothes, and their hairstyles and makeup come from models advertised in fashion magazines, movies, and television, that is, models promoted by the media. The ideal of beauty they follow is provided by the world of commercial consumption, which is a world in which avant-garde art has been fighting for more than fifty years. ”
Imagine a future art historian, or an explorer from outer space, and both ask: What is the concept of "beauty" that dominated the 20th century? Fundamentally, along the way in the history of beauty, we are merely asking similar questions about ancient Greece, the Renaissance, and the early or late 19th century. We identify the opposite artistic styles that fluctuated during the periods, and the epochs in which, for example, neoclassical tastes coexisted with sublime aesthetics. But basically, we see things "from a distance", and each century has its own consistent characteristics, or at least a fundamental incoherence.
Meyer, Nijinsky and the Goddess of the Mountains, from The Priest's Afternoon, 1912
It's the turn of future interpreters to look at things "from a distance," looking for what they think is a true 20th-century feature, possibly pulling out Marinetti, saying that Victory's 20th-century counterpart was indeed a beautiful race car, ignoring Picasso or Piet Mondrian. We cannot look at today from such a distance, we can only say that in the first half of the 20th century, at most (including) the 1960s, there was a fierce competition between the beauty of provocation and the beauty of consumption.
<h1 class= "pgc-h-arrow-right" > provocative beauty</h1>
The beauty of provocation is inspired by various avant-garde movements and artistic experimentalism: from Futurism to Subjectivism, from Expressionism to Surrealism, from Picasso to informal art.
Picasso, Avignon Maiden, 1907, Museum of Modern Art, New York
Avant-garde art does not bother itself with the question of beauty. The new imagery is artistically "beautiful", and they give us pleasure, like Giotto's frescoes or Raphael's paintings, which give them the pleasure of contemporaries, which need not be repeated, but we must understand that this is why it is not to be repeated, because avant-garde art, with its provocative approach, has betrayed all the aesthetic canons that are still respected today. Art is no longer interested in providing the beauty of nature, nor does it offer the pleasure that comes from contemplating harmonious forms. Rather, the goal of art now is to teach us to interpret the world through a variety of different lenses, to teach us the pleasure of returning to ancient or esoteric models, the universe of dreams, the fantasies of the mentally ill, the drug-provoked visions, the rediscovery of matter, the everyday objects presented in an impossible context in a shocking way (such as ready-made art, Dada, etc.), and subconscious impulses.
Severini, Entangled Dancer, 1911, Turin, Private Collection
Contemporary art has only one school of thought, restoring geometric harmony, reminiscent of the aesthetics of proportion, which is abstract art. Abstract art opposes the accommodation of nature and everyday life, taking the path of pure form, from Mondrian's geometric compositions to Yves Klein, Mark Rothko or Piero Manzoni. But who has visited an exhibition or art museum for decades has never heard someone ask an abstract work, "What does this mean?" Who hasn't heard someone who comes out of an exhibition say, "This is also called art?" So, even this "neo-Pythagoreanism" that returns to proportion and mathematical aesthetics also impacts contemporary sensibility and the average person's conception of beauty.
Marvich, Black Square with Red Square, 1915, Museum of Modern Art, New York
Finally, many contemporary art genres, such as happenings, artist self-harm, sound and light shows, sound phenomena— in the name of art, perform scenes similar to ancient mysterious rituals, not to contemplate beautiful things, but to experience religion, but to lust, primitive all the way, the gods are no longer there. Similarly, there are events such as raves, that is, large groups of people gathered on the disco dance hall or rock concert, the lights flickering, the music shaking the sky, as if the world is in harmony (always stimulated by chemical drugs), outsiders see it, called "beauty" (the beauty of the ancient Roman Arena), and the actual experience is different. Participants may talk about "beautiful experiences", just as we say that a swimming is really "beautiful", a motorcycle outing is "beautiful", or the "beauty" of a certain encounter.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" > the beauty of consumption</h1>
But our future visitors won't fail to spot another strange thing. Visitors to avant-garde art exhibitions buy sculptures they can't understand, and those who participate in "occasional" art events wear makeup according to the fashionable canon. They wear jeans or designer clothes, and their hairstyles and makeup come from models advertised in fashion magazines, movies, and television, that is, models promoted by the media. The ideal of beauty they follow is provided by the world of commercial consumption, which is a world in which avant-garde art has been fighting for more than fifty years.
How can this contradiction be explained? I do not intend to speculate here, but may be called a typical contradiction of the 20th century. The future guest must ask what the model of beauty in mass media really is. He would notice some of the contrasts of the century.
Greta Garbo
Anita Eckerberg
The first contrast is that there are two opposite models in the same decade. Here's an example: The film features "Deadly Woman" represented by Greta Garbo and Rita Hayworth, and "The Girl Next Door" represented by Claudette Colbert and Doris Day.
John Wayne, Film Dragon Tiger League, directed by Howard Hawkes, 1967
Dustin Hoffman
The tall and majestic Western hero John Wayne coexists with the gentle and slightly feminine Dutin Hoffman. Gary Cooper at the same time as Fred Astaire. The thin fred Astaire dances with the burly Gene Kelly. The fashion industry launched the gorgeous women's clothing from the movie "Roberta", along with the design of Coco Chanel's male and female fusion. The mass media is thoroughly democratic, providing a model of beauty for the naturally aristocratic, as well as a model of beauty for the fleshy working-class girl.
Fred Astaire and Jane Rogers, film Dance at Sea, directed by Mark Sandridge, 1936
Women who can't compete with the plump-breasted Anita Ekberg can be the slender Audrey Hepburn. Men without the gentle masculine beauty of Richard Gere are modeled on the kindness of Al Pacino and the blue-collar class charm of Robert De Niro. Finally, for those who can't afford the beauty of Maserati, it's also convenient to choose the beauty of the Mini.
Raymond, The Flash, 1974
The second contrast divides the 20th century in two. The ideals of beauty presented by the mass media in the first 60 years of the 20th century originated from "major arts." The laid-back women in the 1920s and 1930s commercials are reminiscent of the slim beauty of art nouveau and art deco. The creatives for various products reveal the influence of the Futurism, Subjectivism, and Surreal movements. The comic strip Little Nemo is inspired by Art Nouveau, and the urban plots of other worlds in The Flash are reminiscent of the utopias of modernist architects such as Sant'Elia, and even pre-emptied the shape of modern missiles. The comic strip Dick Tracy appears in increasingly familiar avant-garde drawings. Finally, Tracing Mickey Mouse from the 1930s to the 1950s shows how those painting methods tended to be the aesthetic sensibility of the time.
However, Pop Art began to introduce experimental works based on images taken from commercial, industrial and mass communication media, and the Beatles orchestra cleverly rewritten some traditional musical forms, and the gap between provocative art and consumer art was narrowing. In addition, there seems to be a gap between "humanistic" art and "popular" art, but in the so-called postmodern climate, when tradition is constantly being revalued, cultured art has also introduced experimental new works that transcend visual art.
Edelman, The Beatles, Illustration of Yellow Submarine · Subafilms Ltd.
Mass media, on the other hand, no longer present any unified model, any single ideal beauty. Even with an advertising campaign destined to last only a week, the media can requisition all avant-garde experiments, while launching models taken from the 1920s, 1930s, 40s and 1950s, and even showing outdated car styles from the mid-century. The 19th-century pictorial imagery that the mass media continues to bring back to the pot, mae West's fullness and the charm of popular fashion model anorexia; Naomi Campbell's hot beauty, and Claudia Schiffer's North Europe and America; the elegance of traditional kick-and-stomp dance in Cabaret Online, and the cold architecture of Blade Runner; the deadly woman in TV films or commercials, and Julia Schiffer's north Europe and America; the elegance of traditional kick-and-drop dance in Cabaret Online, and the cold architecture of Blade Runner; the deadly woman in tv movies or commercials, and Julia Schiffer. Julia Roberts or Cameron Diaz represents the ice-clear neighbor girl; the short-haired George Clooney, with a floral renovation, his face painted in metallic colors, his hair straight as a multicolored forest or a fully shaved robot Cyborg, juxtaposed with many types.
Daryl Hanna and Rotger Hall, film Blade Runner, directed by Ridley Scott, 1982
Our future visitors will not be able to discern which ideal is the aesthetic ideal that mass media disseminated in the 20th and 20th centuries onwards. He also threw himself in the face of this polytheistic religion of total tolerance of differences and differences, radical mixture of doctrines, absolute and irrepressible beauty.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" > excerpt from this article</h1>
Author: [Italian] Umberto Echo
Publisher: Central Compilation Press
Translator: Peng Huaidong
Publication year: 2007-2
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