concerning the question of whether an ugly object could also exert a
positive potential. Edmund Burke defined ugliness in his Observations on
the Beautiful and the Sublime as the exact opposite of beauty (Burke).
Lessing pointedly refers to this notion in his Laokoon when he refers to
the prevalent problem of associating physical ugliness with moral
ugliness. He wrote, "Denn ein mifegebildeter Korper und eine schone
Seele sind wie Ol und ESig, die, wenn man sie schon ineinander schlagt,
fur den Geschmack immer getrennet bleiben" (Lessing 1964). This
analogy seems especially apt in regard to Burke's supposition that
beauty is a social quality, directly implying that ugliness is an asocial
one if ugliness is indeed to be understood as the exact opposite of beauty
(Burke).
In both his Kritik der Urteilskraft and in his 1764 essay response to
Burke entitled Beobachtungen uber das Gefuhl des Schonen und
Erhabenen, Kant adopts Burke's definition of ugliness as the opposite of
beauty. Kant defines beauty in his Kritik as dependent on the subjective
value of Lust, meaning that ugliness should be recognized through
Unlust. That would mean that ugliness could only be found in
undesirable objects, in un-pleasure, displeasure or pain: "Unlust [ist]
diejenige Vorstellung [...], die den Zustand der Vorstellungen zu ihrem
eigenen Gegenteile zu bestimmen (sie abzuhalten oder wegzuschaffen)
den Grund erhalt" (Kant 1996). Yet this implies that ugliness or Unlust
has the power to engender emotion, to produce a reaction in its observer
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