The Art of Travel Rheotrical Analysis
Kirsten Cooper
Lara Jacobs
WRTG 3020
2/4/13
The Art of Darkness: Beauty’s Dependence on Darkness in The Art of Travel
“There was only one way to possess beauty properly, and that was by understanding it, by making oneself conscious of the factors (psychological and visual) responsible for it” (de Botton 216). In The Art of Travel, Alain de Botton encourages the reader to view the world through an artistic eye, one which is attuned to detail. By doing so, one can comprehend beauty by becoming ardently interested in the minutiae of life. In the literal sense, beauty is an adjective attributed to the aesthetically pleasing, however de Botton alludes to a more complex sense of beauty by using it as a metaphor for happiness. Although it seems as if de Botton’s overarching theme is to recognize beauty through detail, it becomes more apparent that he feels seeing beauty requires not only attention to detail, but also delving even deeper into our consciousness and recognizing that beauty is heavily dependent on darkness. De Botton says, “The twin purposes of art: to make sense of pain and fathom the sources of beauty” (de Botton 233), suggesting that one must see the dark in order to see the light.
De Botton includes a painting by Edward Hopper called Gas in the book to highlight the relationship between shadows and brightness. This painting depicts a solitary scene of a gas station attendant checking the level on a pump. In the original color painting, the gas station pumps are fire engine red and the light around the station makes it look like high noon. However, in the background there is a heavy forest and the road running by disappears into darkness alongside the forest. De Botton’s inclusion of this particular Hopper painting is a suggestion that light and dark are often juxtaposed to create dimensional depiction; in this case to highlight the ominous characteristic of darkness encroaching on light. Hopper uses hard lines and shadows in many of his paintings,
Lara Jacobs
WRTG 3020
2/4/13
The Art of Darkness: Beauty’s Dependence on Darkness in The Art of Travel
“There was only one way to possess beauty properly, and that was by understanding it, by making oneself conscious of the factors (psychological and visual) responsible for it” (de Botton 216). In The Art of Travel, Alain de Botton encourages the reader to view the world through an artistic eye, one which is attuned to detail. By doing so, one can comprehend beauty by becoming ardently interested in the minutiae of life. In the literal sense, beauty is an adjective attributed to the aesthetically pleasing, however de Botton alludes to a more complex sense of beauty by using it as a metaphor for happiness. Although it seems as if de Botton’s overarching theme is to recognize beauty through detail, it becomes more apparent that he feels seeing beauty requires not only attention to detail, but also delving even deeper into our consciousness and recognizing that beauty is heavily dependent on darkness. De Botton says, “The twin purposes of art: to make sense of pain and fathom the sources of beauty” (de Botton 233), suggesting that one must see the dark in order to see the light.
De Botton includes a painting by Edward Hopper called Gas in the book to highlight the relationship between shadows and brightness. This painting depicts a solitary scene of a gas station attendant checking the level on a pump. In the original color painting, the gas station pumps are fire engine red and the light around the station makes it look like high noon. However, in the background there is a heavy forest and the road running by disappears into darkness alongside the forest. De Botton’s inclusion of this particular Hopper painting is a suggestion that light and dark are often juxtaposed to create dimensional depiction; in this case to highlight the ominous characteristic of darkness encroaching on light. Hopper uses hard lines and shadows in many of his paintings,
Cited: 1) De Botton, Alain. The Art of Travel. New York: Vintage Books, 2002. Print