This book is the follow up to the previous volume On Beauty. Apparently beauty and ugliness are concepts that imply each other, and by ugliness we usually mean the opposite of beauty, so all we need do is define the first to understand the nature of the second. But the various manifestations of ugliness over the centuries are richer and more unpredictable than is commonly thought. The anthological quotations and the extraordinary illustrations in this book lead us on a surprising journey among the nightmares, terrors, and ...
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This book is the follow up to the previous volume On Beauty. Apparently beauty and ugliness are concepts that imply each other, and by ugliness we usually mean the opposite of beauty, so all we need do is define the first to understand the nature of the second. But the various manifestations of ugliness over the centuries are richer and more unpredictable than is commonly thought. The anthological quotations and the extraordinary illustrations in this book lead us on a surprising journey among the nightmares, terrors, and loves of almost three thousand years, where acts of rejection go hand in hand with touching gestures of compassion, and the rejection of deformity is accompanied by decadent ecstasies over the most seductive violations of all classical canons. Among demons, madmen, horrible enemies, and disquieting presences, among horrid abysses and deformities that verge on the sublime, among freaks and the living dead, we discover a vast and often unsuspected iconographic vein. So much so that, on gradually encountering in these pages the ugliness of nature, spiritual ugliness, asymmetry, disharmony, disfigurement, and the succession of things sordid, weak, vile, banal, random, arbitrary, coarse, repugnant, clumsy, horrendous, vacuous, nauseating, criminal, spectral, witchlike, satanic, repellent, disgusting, unpleasant, grotesque, abominable, odious, crude, foul, dirty, obscene, frightening, abject, monstrous, hair-raising, ugly, terrible, terrifying, revolting, repulsive, loathsome, fetid, ignoble, awkward, ghastly and indecent, the first foreign publisher to see this book exclaimed: 'How beautiful ugliness is!'
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Add this copy of On Ugliness to cart. $41.29, like new condition, Sold by Baca Enterprises rated 4.0 out of 5 stars, ships from COLORADO SPRINGS, CO, UNITED STATES, published 2007 by Rizzoli.
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This is an ex-library book and may have the usual library/used-book markings inside. This book has hardback covers. Clean from markings. In poor condition, suitable as a reading copy. Dust jacket in fair condition. Please note the Image in this listing is a stock photo and may not match the covers of the actual item, 1500grams, ISBN: 9781846551222.
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Stated First Edition, first printing with no additional printings noted, in fine / like new condition. The pages are clean and crisp with no bent corners. Boards are as new, and the spine is square and tight. The dust jacket is clean and undamaged. The book is in excellent condition with an unclipped DJ, and no remainder mark. All items guaranteed, and a portion of each sale supports social programs in Los Angeles. Ships from CA.
Add this copy of On Ugliness to cart. $168.73, new condition, Sold by Revaluation Books rated 4.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Exeter, DEVON, UNITED KINGDOM, published 2007 by Rizzoli Intl Pubns.
Mr. Eco has written a fascinating, often hilarious survey of "ugliness" in western art history. The book is also full of wonderful reproductions, so it's an unusual coffee-table browser as well as an informative read.
DanielSSaxMD
Oct 22, 2008
Umberto Eco once again shows his mastery of language and art. This companion piece to the History of Beauty once again uses art to illustrate the changing faces of ugliness to illustrate society and thought during the history humanity from antiquity to modern times. It is a book that compliments beauty and will supply a visual and verbal panorama of man's-woman's thought and expression of him-herself.
