ugliness
Ugliness is an evaluative term for a characteristic that is regarded as repulsive , which in the case of people can refer to appearance and character , but also to works of art and objects. It is defined by the subjective perception of a person, culture or by a time epoch and is the opposite of beauty .
Ugly is as disgusting , disgusting , ugly , disgusting (obsolete, today or incorrect politically ) degenerate referred. Hässlichkeitsempfindung is often triggered by the deviation from a collectively or individually desired standard or ideal .
Origin and role in evolution
The evolutionary anchoring of the feeling of ugliness is a control of the choice of partner. The universal principle of bisexuality, which reduces the risk of the propagation of genetic weaknesses and defects, is no longer sufficient for a useful mixing of genes, especially in small populations (as was typical in the early days of mankind), so that the risk of incest - mutational damage can increase. Since such damage can easily lead to external changes (deviations from the norm) and also usually to a weakening of genetic fitness (e.g. health robustness), the former is suitable as an external indicator for the latter. The perception of ugliness is an instinct that uses the informative value of this indicator for partner choice. Another external indicator is the presence of clinical pictures , which are therefore also almost without exception and across cultures perceived as ugly to repulsive.
Example: Asymmetries in body structure or facial features are a possible indicator of (severe) genetic damage. This results in an instinctive preference for symmetry, or an ugliness perception of asymmetry, which by the way, due to its deep instinctive anchoring, affects many areas of life (beyond faces or human bodies) across cultures.
Word origination
The word ugly is etymologically derived from the word hate and originally meant something like hostile, hated or hateful. The word meaning then expanded in modern times . In the German dictionary of the Brothers Grimm it says: “often with a less pronounced expression of the term, a feeling of reluctance arousing, unpopular, especially of the physical form of a person”. Grimm also mentions the expansion of meaning in the sense of a moral evaluation, for example in the expression "an ugly habit". And “with regard to smell, hearing, taste, feeling: this flower has an ugly smell; the food tasted ugly, ”as a synonym for disgusting .
In Meyer's Konversationslexikon at the end of the 19th century it says about the ambivalent character of ugliness: “Although its form is displeasing, the ugly object can inspire interest in other respects: either as a characteristic reflection of given reality (in nature or history) or through material Stimuli [...] z. B. the visible conflict between the [...] repulsive exterior and the attractive, even captivating interior [...] ”. At the same time, reference is made to the gender-specific differences with regard to appearance: “Scholars, yes in a certain sense men in general, enjoy 'the privilege of ugliness'; the French who put the 'piquant' over the beautiful speaks of a 'belle laideur'. "
In French there is the term beauté du diable ("beauty of the devil") for a woman who is sexually attractive, although according to the usual standards she is to be regarded as ugly or disfigured. In Theodor Fontane's work bay of Wuthenow by is smallpox disfigured Victoire Carayon beauté du diable certified.
history
Even in ancient times , the ideal of beauty was a flawless body with harmonious proportions. Significant deviations from the ideal and even more physical deformations led to the classification as ugly. In the Middle Ages , beauty was also a relatively high priority. Disfigured and disabled people were rejected and marginalized, they became outsiders on the fringes of society. That was also true of lepers . Henrik Specht has examined medieval court literature in terms of stereotypical features of ugliness. The most common are: dark skin and hair color, tangled hairstyle, heavy body hair, staring eyes, a wide face with a conspicuous nose, large crooked teeth and anatomical abnormalities of the body.
With the emergence of nationalism in Europe, the idea arose that there are beautiful and ugly peoples , with the European physiognomy as the ideal of beauty, ethnocentrically . That was in the 18th century in the Oeconomischen encyclopedia of Johann Georg Krünitz to read: "The people inhabiting wohlgebildetsten by gehends the most beautiful parts of the world [...]. So rich in forms, changed so many times by art and culture, Europe is, yet it represents perfect beauties; only this cannot generally be asserted because of the frequent intermingling; notwithstanding this, Europeans are among the most well-educated nations on earth. They have an elongated occiput, a pleasant arching of the cranium and forehead, a raised face with wide open eyes of appropriate size and many colors, a protruding nose, thin lips that are neither raised nor drawn back. [...] Your stature is usually a little over the middle. The formation of her body has a pleasing proportion ”. Nevertheless, beauty was also granted to other peoples who fulfilled these ideals. According to Krünitz, this applied to the residents of Kashmir and Tahiti, among others . "Regardless of their blackness, even several tribes among the Negroes have very much in common with a beautiful European education [= physical formation]."
Krünitz also describes the ethnic groups and characteristics that were considered ugly from this point of view: “On the contrary, there are also ethnic groups who […] [one] at least according to European taste […] are far less beautiful, and often ugly is inclined to hold. This is where most of the Mongolian formations belong , due to their similar Tatar figure, through a medium stature, through large splashy faces, few and thin beards = hair, through oblique, flat filled eyes = angles, through narrow, black, Not very arched eyebrows, characterized by a small, flat nose that is too wide towards the forehead, by large protruding ears, crooked thighs and legs, by wide and strong teeth, and by hair as thick as horses = hair, which is next to the whole face = formation seems to characterize a prey = animal among men. In this picture one finds almost all those peoples [...] who inhabit northern Asia. "
The natural scientists of the 18th century explained the different appearance of different ethnic groups mainly with the requirements of the climate and their way of life. Europeans also found the body paints and other forms of body design that are still common today among primitive peoples to be repulsive .
See also
literature
- Umberto Eco (ed.): The story of ugliness . Hanser, Munich 2007, ISBN 978-3-446-20939-8 (original title Storia della bruttezza , translated from Italian).
- Ines Engelmann: Ugly ?! A discussion of visual arts and literature from the beginning of the 19th to the beginning of the 20th century . VDG, Weimar 2003, ISBN 3-89739-378-6 (also: Dissertation, Univ. Stuttgart, 2002).
- Ursula Hoyningen-Süess, Christine Amrein (Ed.): Disfigurement and ugliness. Contributions from a philological, medical, literary and art historical perspective as well as from a special educational perspective. Bern / Stuttgart / Vienna 1995 (= contributions to curative and special education. Volume 17).
- Heiner Klemme (Ed.): In the shadow of the beautiful. The aesthetics of the ugly in historical approaches and current debates . Aisthesis-Verlag, Bielefeld 2006, ISBN 3-89528-560-9 .
- Karl Rosenkranz: Aesthetics of the Ugly. 2., revised. Ed., D. Ed. Königsberg 1853. Reclam, Leipzig 1996. ISBN 3-379-01555-5 .
- Christine Winkler: The Mask of Evil. Grotesque physiognomy as a counter-image of the sacred and perfect in the art of the 15th and 16th centuries . Scaneg, Munich 1986, ISBN 3-9800671-8-1 .
Web links
swell
- ↑ Product Häszlich in German Dictionary
- ↑ a b Article Häßlich in Meyers Konversationslexikon approx. 1895
- ↑ Paul Michel : Explanatory Patterns for Ugly and Disfigured People in Medieval Literature. In: Ursula Hoyningen-Süess, Christine Amrein (ed.): Disfigurement and ugliness. Contributions from a philological, medical, literary and art historical perspective as well as from a special educational perspective. Bern / Stuttgart / Vienna 1995 (= contributions to curative and special education. Volume 17), pp. 59–92.
- ↑ Antje Schelberg: The ugliness of the sick. On the psychosocial significance of medieval notions of beauty using the example of lepers (pdf; 220 kB)
- ↑ a b c article body = beauty and ugliness in the economic encyclopedia of Krünitz