best demonstrates its social function. His Laokoon, a treatise he claims
to have written against Baumgarten, also constitutes a critique of Burke.
In a review of Burke's Observations, Lessing criticized Burke's concept of
beauty as "undeutliche Vorstellungen einer Vollkommenheit" (Lessing
1968). Lessing writes in his Laokoon about beauty and art in terms of the
pleasure it creates within the observer: "Der Endzweck der Kunste
hingegen ist Vergnugen; und das Vergnugen ist entbehrlich" (Lessing
1964). Pleasure is what defines art, and beauty is determined through
"korperliche Gegenstanden" (Lessing 1964). Lessing determines that
ugliness has no place within art because of the negative reactions it
elicits. However, ugliness is transmogrified through the artistic process.
Lessing's treatment of ugliness within the written arts opens up another
means of conceptualizing it: ugliness cannot be represented. "Durch
Wahrheit und Ausdruck [werde] das Hafelichste der Natur in ein Schones
der Kunst verwandelt" (Lessing 1964). The artistic process changes it
into something more palatable and functional. The most poignant
metaphor for ugliness stems from Gotthold Ephraim Lessing. He wrote in
his Laokoon that "ein miiSgebildeter Korper und eine schone Seele [...]wie
Ol und Efiig [sind], die, wenn man sie schon ineinander schlagt, fur den
Geschmack immer getrennet bleiben" (Lessing 1964). This metaphor
encapsulates a social bias that regards ugliness, whether in art or
human form, as a lesser phenomenon. It is from Lessing's metaphor that
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