beauty-Truth#1

I love the lighting effects in this. It's very intriguing and a bit of a departure from your usual commission work. I see a range of themes: "beauty is in the eye of the beholder", "Beauty minus Truth (is Ugliness)", Beauty (is) Truth#1 (which is not really a rephrasing of the second)... I'm sure there could be more if I spent longer thinking of them. I find the piece to be very unified, well composed, and the colours are attractive.

I've been thinking about beauty and ugliness lately, in art and in the world. I wonder if the acceptance of what would traditionally be deemed ugly, outsider, or low art is a symptom of global post traumatic stress? Has exposure to horrific historic events created a need to metabolize the external ugliness of the world through art? Or are we simply becoming more tolerant as a species and allowing genre art to flourish in reduced segregation? For that matter, what is it about flowers, babies, fuzzy animals, and perfect complexions that most people find immediately appealing or beautiful? Is it simply years of training that tells us so? Does our genetics hard-wire us for beauty? Or is it as Plato claimed, a universal truth?