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The aesthetic of the concealed identity of the most influential artists | From “The young Pope”

“Ok, so, who is the most important author of the last twenty years? Careful now, not the best, virtuosity is for the arrogant, the most important, the author who has sparked so much morbid curiosity that he became the most important? 
-I wouldn’t know. I’d say Philip Roth. 
No. Salinger. The most important film director? 
– Spielberg. 
No. Kubrick. Contemporary artist? 
-Jeff Koons. Or Marina Abramovic. 
Banksy. Electronic music group? 
-I don’t know the first thing about electronic music. 
You say Harvard is a good university! ( The word “Harvard” may impress people around here, but to an American, it means one thing only: decline.) Anyway, Daft Punk. The best Italian female vocalist? 
– Mina? 
Very good! Now do you know what it is, what the invisible red thread is that connects them all, all these most important figures in their respective fields? None of them let themselves be seen. None of them let themselves be photographed.”

Pope Pius XIII

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American Psycho: a possible explanation

I used to think that the day would never come (Omissis) To the childhood I lost, replaced by fear I used to think that the day would never come That my life would depend on the morning sun

New Order – True Faith

I’m going to reflect here about the big excitement and enthusiasm that this movie can give and I will propose a possible interpretation of this complex world. Is Patrick Bateman a killer? Is it all just a dream?

Warning: spoilers ahead

American Psycho is the story of Patrick Bateman, an handsome New York investment banker working in his father’s firm. His “golden” world is made of Michelin starred restaurants and Amex Platinum credit cards.

Continue reading “American Psycho: a possible explanation”

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Human’s beauty, love and the rules of attraction (Part 2/2)

In part one we talked about external and internal beauty and the relation between the two to find, if not a definition, a synthesis.

Beauty in itself is not necessarily linked with attraction, we can think that a person is beautiful in every possible way but not be attracted at all. Contrarily attraction can be present in the absence of a judgment of beauty. I think there’s a confusion between these two concepts because they are often examined together. They are off course connected because some beautiful traits can attract us. But if what I said before it’s true there must be something more. Continue reading “Human’s beauty, love and the rules of attraction (Part 2/2)”

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Human’s beauty, love and the rules of attraction (Part 1/2)

When I first wrote about beauty i expressed a general concept that can have a universal validity but some areas of the aesthetic realm deserves some special attention, and human’s beauty is one of them.
The coincidence of beauty with a sense of peace can withstand the severe test of today’s topic but needs to be deepened. The peculiarity is that we’re dealing with humans here not with objects, we’re not talking about industrial design and software engineering; we have a constantly changing body, a character, a soul, an education, basic needs and much more sophisticated ones. Continue reading “Human’s beauty, love and the rules of attraction (Part 1/2)”

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The sublime 

In the history of philosophy there’s a long tradition about the concept of sublime. An inspired artistic experience without rational rules it’s how Plato tries to frame it in the Phaedrus, dated around 370 BC. In the first century DC in the essay “About the sublime” by an unknown author there’s an explicit distinction between the beautiful, founded on formal perfection and the sublime, which finds its origin in powerful feelings and belongs entirely to the emotional domain. This essay was rediscovered in 1554, Continue reading “The sublime “

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Twin Peaks Season 3: how to

“This is the water. And this is the well. Drink full and descend. The horse is the white of the eyes and dark within” The Woodsman in Twin Peaks – Season 3 Episode 8

Spoiler alert: some mild spoilers ahead 

 

We won’t forget soon those words we heard in the latest episode of Twin Peaks together with the instant classic: “Got a light?”. In the end credits the man, who gets darker in face as his actions get more violent, is credited as “woodsman”. As you know if you watched the series the woods around twin peaks hold a terrible secret and… Continue reading “Twin Peaks Season 3: how to”

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BEAUTY AND PEACE

 “The starry heavens above me and the moral law within me” Immanuel Kant – Critique of Practical Reason

What is beauty?

This is how Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English defines “beauty”: 1) a quality that people, places, or things have that makes them very attractive to look at 2) a woman who is very beautiful 3) a quality that something such as a poem, song, emotion etc has that gives you pleasure or joy 4) a particularly good quality that makes something especially suitable or useful 5) a very good, large etc example of something 6) beauty is in the eye of the beholder: used to say that different people have different opinions about what is beautiful 7) beauty is only skin-deep: used to say that how someone looks is not as important as a good character.

Beauty attracts and seduces us and it somehow gives us pleasant feelings like joy, but it’s also virtuous and it adds value to our world. What if something achieves the purpose it was created for but it’s not aesthetically pleasing? Continue reading “BEAUTY AND PEACE”