Is it possible to write a rave review about a book that I hestitate to recommend? Frankly, I struggled to like and finish Roger Scruton's Beauty: A Very Short Introduction, because it is a dense philosphical treatise. I understood about twenty percent of it, but that percentage was pure gold! I still think about it almost every day.
In the final chapter, Scruton explains the differences between art and "kitsch." Kitsch is art with no message of its own, in which all the effects are copied and all the emotions are faked. He calls it the "Disneyfication" of everyday life, when people prefer the sensuous trappings of belief to the thing truly believed. It is not an excess of feeling, but a deficiency. The world of kitsch is in a certain measure a heartless world, in which emotion is directed away from its proper target towards sugary stereotypes, permitting us to pay passing tribute to love and sorrow without the trouble of feeling them.... Art cannot live in the same world as kitsch, which is a world of commodities to be consumed, rather than icons to be revered.
This explains why I have always been uncomfortable with Precious Moments figurines and Thomas Kinkaide paintings. (Forgive me if you love those.) Since reading this chapter, I've seen kitsch everywhere from Hallmark movies to TV commercials, to Facebook posts: content that elicits an emotional response that is not based on deep thoughts or feelings.
Although this was a very hard book to read, I am grateful that Scruton gave me new ways to think about art and its importance. The day after I finished Scruton's book, I read a post on Facebook about Tolkien's dislike of Disney for cheapening the beauty and power of fairy tales for "universal consumption." A few weeks later I learned that this was an AI generated article. (Ugh!) BUT all was not lost; members of the Literary Life Podcast group led me to an authentic article on the subject.
One quote from the article: From Tolkien's perspective, Disney was a glorifed salesman who peddled commercialized dumbed-down fairy tale casualties to the masses.
It sounds like Tolkien and Scruton were in agreement on this.
My lengthier review of Scruton's book is on Goodreads.
