Aestheticization of Violence

People rarely draw lines between aesthetics and violence (of course, other than those

psychopath serial killers who warship violence). The reason why putting ‘violence’ with

‘aesthetic’ is so unimaginable is because the deep-rooted vivid image of blood, knives, guns,

and people dying pop into our heads when we think of violence. However, artists in the past

century have broken the impossible and created aestheticized violence.

In order to understand why and how the aestheticization of violence was ‘invented,’ we have

to first take a look at the essence of violence and aesthetics. As most of us might have already

been aware, violence is the behavior of abuse and can be further categorized into different

types, including mental violence, physical violence, visible violence, and non-visible

violence. If you take psychology or have a certain level of understanding of human behavior,

it would probably be not surprising to know that these primitive aggression behavior are

caused by the temporary or permanent taking over of human’s hidden barbarity over one’s

rationality (which is often seen as the crucial component of humanity that distinguishes us

from animals). Sometimes our rationality is sometimes overthrown by that hidden barbarity

within every single one of us because the balance can only be reached when our barbarity

coexists with our rationality. You can think of it as how balance is constituted equally by

conflict and harmony. The concept of aggressive behavior originated from our barbarity, and

rationality provides human beings a mystery and unpredictability. That’s where artists find

the sense of beauty, or the aesthetic within violence.

Of course, the brief origin story of aestheticized violence provided above is only one

perspective of the whole story. The development and influence on the population can be

influenced by many factors. For those who are interested in how aestheticized violence is

presented in movies, The Silence of the Lambs is a must-watch. However, it has to be noted

that there might be scenes that may cause discomfort, and it is necessary for one to evaluate

their own condition before watching. For those of you who are interested in this topic but

don’t dare to watch the movie, the reference articles below are also highly recommended. The

essay provided a holistic explanation of the origin of aestheticized violence from both

biological and psychological perspectives that is no doubt worth reading.

Aestheticized violence is definitely a sophisticated way of presenting the dark side of

humanity and aggressive behavior that can be unpacked from diverse perspectives. I believe

that getting to know more about it enables us the chance to peek at humans’ most primitive

desires. It certainly deserves more discussion.

Reference

曾肅良. (2003). 解構 “暴力美學”. 造形藝術學刊, 29-41.