Oxymoron

Imperfect perfection –or prefect imperfection if you prefer– would seem to be the ultimate oxymoron. However, I think it aptly describes much of what we appreciate as beauty. True beauty is never perfect.

I am reminded of the perfectification of art through the ages. [Not a typo; I just made that up.] Artists struggled for centuries in their desire to depict accurately our dynamic 3-D world on a static 2-D surface. In early art, figures in a crowd were stacked up upon each other, buildings were askew, objects in the distance were the same size as the ones in the foreground.

By the nineteenth century artists developed painting to such a degree that it became very nearly perfect at reflecting what we see –and it lost its appeal. For example, The Birth of Venus by Bouguereau is so good it could be a photograph. Though it is fetching, as art it falls flat. In a similar fashion the air brushed perfection of Playboy playmates make them look like Barbie dolls. [Wasn't one actually named Barbie? Hi Barbie!] As presented, these women seem to have lost their humanity. Pictures of real women with moles, freckles and imperfect teeth are much more likely to arouse the opposite sex –or the same sex if you're wired that way. [Not a typo: I meant wired, not weird!]

Any way, the achievement of perfection sent art in a whole new direction –and the camera took over our need for objective representation of the world. The impressionists and the expressionists in Europe and America began to dismantle centuries of technical development in pictorial art. They began to "paint the light" instead of objects and people. Consensual realty was distorted in the effort to paint what the artist felt or to give visual expression to a human emotion. Or just to depict a human in motion.

E voila! Art became beautiful again through its imperfectification. [Yeah, a typo.]

P.S.
Here's some homework for you: Which came first the Playboy playmate or the Barbie doll?