What ugly and beautiful photographs reveal about COVID-19 lockdown experiences, everyday aesthetics and photography aesthetics

Against the backdrop of the COVID-19 pandemic, which restricted our daily (visual) experiences, we asked people to take an ugly and beautiful photograph from within their homes. In total, 284 photographs (142 ugly and 142 beautiful) and accompanying statements were submitted and brought to light an intimate portrait of how participants were experiencing their (lockdown) home environment. Results revealed an aesthetic preference for (living) nature. Beauty and ugliness were also connected to good versus bad views, mess versus cosiness, unflattering versus flattering portraits and positive versus negative (COVID-19) emotions. In terms of photography strategies, editing and colour were important for beautiful photographs, whereas a lack of effort and sharpness showed up relatively more in ugly photographs. A follow-up study revealed that other viewers' (n = 86) aesthetic judgements of the photographs were largely in line with the original submissions, and confirmed several of the themes. Overall, our study provides a unique photographic window on our everyday aesthetic experiences at home during the COVID-19 lockdown.

(Neuro)Aesthetics: Beauty, ugliness, and ethics

The objective of this essay is a holistic view of aesthetics, ethics, and neuroaesthetics. After a few introductory case studies, aesthetics is systematically introduced as a philosophical subdiscipline. This perspective is then expanded from aesthetics to neuroaesthetics. Using various art forms as well as current media formats, the aspects of beauty and ugliness are discussed, and aesthetic properties are expanded to include ethical implications. These can be expressed through ideals of beauty and the compulsion for body transformation. This perspective is then expanded from aesthetics to neuroaesthetics. From this point of view of art, the so-called golden ratio will play a central role. It will be shown how representations affect people and what ethical implications are associated with the effects. Therefore, this essay first has to look at art from the perspective of neuroaesthetics, and then consider the ethical aspects of the beautiful and the ugly. The considerations lead to a brief discussion of Socrates's three sieves.

Is ugliness a pathology? An ethical critique of the therapeuticalization of cosmetic surgery

Pathologizing ugliness refers to the framing of unattractive features as a type of disease or deformity. By framing ugliness as pathology, cosmetic procedures are reframed as therapy rather than enhancement, thereby potentially avoiding ethical critiques regularly levelled against cosmetic surgery. As such, the practice of pathologizing ugliness and the ensuing therapeuticalization of cosmetic procedures require an ethical analysis that goes beyond that offered by current enhancement critiques. In this article, I propose using a thick description of the goals of medicine as an ethical framework for evaluating problematic medical practices. I first describe the goals of medicine based on Daniel Callahan's account. I then propose that the goals work best in conjunction with ancillary ethical concepts, namely medical knowledge and skills, standards of practice and medical duties and virtues. Next, I apply the thick description of the goals of medicine in critiquing the practice of framing ugliness as disease. Here, I demonstrate ethical conflicts between aesthetic judgments that underpin the practice of pathologizing ugliness and medical judgments that inform ethical medical practices. In particular, the thick description of the goals of medicine helps reveal ethical conflicts in at least three key domains common to clinical practices, which include (a) disease determination, (b) diagnostic evaluation and (c) establishing clinical indications. My analysis offers a novel way of critiquing the practice of pathologizing ugliness in cosmetic surgery, which tends to be neglected by enhancement critiques.

Beauty, ugliness and the sublime

Jung and Freud had very different ideas about the nature of analysis. This paper begins by exploring how Jung's gnostic approach, with its goal of individuation, is deeply informed by Buddhist and Taoist principles. His pluralistic, relational model regards truth as subjective and co-constructed with the patient. In contrast, Freud's secular methodology has objective truth as its goal. His classical psychoanalysis is a form of reality testing where the analyst claims to know the painful, singular, objective reality which the patient tries to evade. The theory of aesthetic development (see Piaget 1951, Baldwin 1975, Parsons 1980, Housen 1992, Harris Williams 2010) proposes that artistic appreciation is linked to human development. The paper looks at how the apperception of beauty, related to both truth and meaning, acts as an indicator and facilitator of individuation in the clinical encounter. This is illustrated by a clinical case study. Through empirical research, support is given to the argument (Bollas 1978, Meltzer 1988) that our early experience of the feminine/maternal plays a central role in developing an aesthetic capacity. The experience of the sublime in analysis is examined and portrayed as a means by which aesthetic development may be reignited and narcissistic isolation shattered.