"Man is least himself when he talks in his own person. Give him a mask and he will tell you the truth." (Oscar Wilde)

This quote is taken from Oscar Wilde's essay, 'The Truth About Masks' in which he reviews the power of disguise and its ability to not only alter a persons behaviour, but to fool their audience into believing that they are something other than their ordinary selves.

He discusses how costumes and disguises were a vital role in Shakespeare’s plays as they created a dramatic effect that stretched beyond appearance. By introducing a disguise, Shakespeare introduces a new character. To the audience it is still the same character only pretending to be someone else. However, to anyone unaware of the disguise, the character is a completely different person.

Similarly to Lacan’s ‘structure of the psyche,’ Kohut’s self-psychology focuses on the idea that we experience stages as young children that affect our personal development. These stages are mirroring, idealising and alter ego.

One particular aspect of self-psychology, which Kohut explores, is alter ego transference – when a person projects certain characteristics of their own personality onto an object or imaginary person created within a fantasy. Kohut defines alter ego transference as a response to narcissistic tendencies as the person is creating a new personality from their own characteristics.

Kohuts analysis shows that the creation of the alter ego goes deeper than visual aspects. I initially considered an alter ego to be a personality that is invented in order to allow the person to behave in a way they usually wouldn’t under their own identity. Kohut, however, describes it as an example of mirroring as the alter ego reflects aspects of the subject.

How the gaze is applied to manipulate audiences through advertising..(extract)

Within the J’adore Dior advert shown, scopophilia has been used as Charlize Theron seductively removes every piece of jewellery she is wearing, whilst walking to the bedroom, until lastly she removes her glamorous dress to show herself in the nude, and we see her walking away in full view of the camera. The way the advert has been shot, close-ups are used frequently to exaggerate the sensuousness of her physical characteristics, (Dyer, 2002.) Cropping has also been used to draw attention to certain parts of the body – isolated legs, the face and her cleavage.

“Analysis of ads suggests that gender is routinely portrayed according to traditional cultural stereotypes: Women are shown as very feminine, as ‘sex objects’ as housewives, mothers, homemakers, and men in situations of authority and dominance over women.” (Dyer, 2002, Page 97)


The viewers are told that, “Gold is cold, diamonds are dead, limousines a car, don’t pretend, feel what’s real.” This is portraying to them that it does not matter what they own, as long as they have the Dior perfume, then they can be natural but beautiful. “Feel what’s real: c’est ca que j’adore.” “It is that, that I adore,” is referring to the being natural that she loves. It is the maker of the adverts’ intention to want the audience to envy Charlize Theron, as she is so beautiful, but once they buy the Dior perfume, they can become like her.

The spectator is meant to envy herself that she will become if she buys the product. It is the idea that she is meant to imagine herself transformed by the product into an object of envy for others, an envy which will then justify her loving self. This could be put in a different way: the publicity image steals her love of herself as she is, and offers it back to her for the price of the product. (Berger, 1977)
In this case, it is the price of the Dior perfume.


Georgina Balmer, Art & Design (Interdisciplinary) Year 2

“ Virtue itself is apt to inhabit such poor human bodies, that no aspect of its invulnerable to jest; and for all fairness we have to seek to the flowers, for all sublimity, to the hills”.[1]

When Immanuel Kant argues how aesthetically pleasing an entity can be he looks to nature, a comparison is made, he argues that ‘free beauty’ is proper beauty, this applies to in particular nature i.e. birds, flowers, trees.

Kant argued that both are the equal when analysing the importance of nature and that of art. Without acquiring knowledge of what is beautiful it seems from a very young age it was instilled into us that nature is pleasing to the senses. This could possibly be where the concept of natural beauty originates, where childhood, innocence and purity coincides.

Kant stresses the importance of beauty being subjective and he states that beauty is in its nature to be admired. This admiration is applied to the object from the feeling of pleasure we would obtain.

Is the application of good taste not subjective? A judgement that treats beauty as a projection of a state of mind on to an article, if it is not of a sensory output it is of a psychological state of mind established by the manoeuvre of an individual’s cognitive faculty.

Many argue that beauty is in the eye of the beholder so how can something by definition ‘beautiful’ only gain that label through popularity.

By Ellie Welsh

---

[1] (p. 39, Strangeness and Beauty, volume 1).

A judgement is personal and spontaneous or it is nothing.

Judgements themselves are informed and influenced by the individuals experiences throughout life, and are influenced by many environmental factors as well as the temprement of the individual. This argument can be seen as an exploration into why no two artists are the same; yes there styles may be similar but the elements that inform the work and the response they are intending to give within their judgement will always contrast. This an aspect most crucial in the arts where an artist is to respond to the social environment they are part of thus relying upon their ability to generate a spontaeous and personal response.

Another dimension to this notion is contained within Bourdieu's critique of Judgement of Taste:

"It requires understanding, whose judgment can err. Feeling, on the other hand, is infallible; but we do not call a man ill unless he feels ill."
(Bourdieu,P & Nice,R, Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste, 198, Harvard University Press

Arguing the issue of trust within the judgment. The decisions that lead the judgment may all be well and good but can the individual making the decision be trusted, but there is also an argument that if the individual feels it is, then the benefit of the doubt should be granted.