Beauty in the Eye of the Goldfinch Is Beauty a Force of Power?

Angie Ritchie

Content Warning: This piece contains mentions of drug use, specifically oxytocin and morphine, as well as mentions of murder.

Since I finished The Secret History a few years ago, I have been seriously fascinated by Donna Tartt. Tartt never fails to deliver characters who are intoxicated with beauty. Some of her characters are so intoxicated with beauty that they let it lead their lives. In The Secret History, the protagonist has such a desire for the picturesque, he overlooks murder by his friends because they appear classy and sophisticated. Beauty becomes what is most valuable to him, to the point where it justifies any immorality.

In my most recent read of Tartt’s work, The Goldfinch, the protagonist (Theo) is so obsessed with the significance of an artwork he stole, he lives in a state of paranoia which results in taking oxytocin and morphine. The piece’s message is that art and, more broadly, aesthetics can be a uniting force for humanity, but they can also cause us great strife.

As a manifestation of beauty, art is one of the very few things that has existed for much of human history. Despite the brutal conflicts, inequality and injustice that have existed for centuries, art has always persisted. And art has always been powerful. It tells stories. It connects us with the experiences of those who came before, whether that is through religion, culture, philosophy or lifestyle. It connects Heaven to Earth (*cue The Creation of Adam*).

I have always found the power of beauty a particularly interesting phenomenon. As social media becomes a key part of society, I cannot help but feel that images, aesthetics and presentation matter increasingly. That is both empowering and terrifying: empowering because beauty can connect us and terrifying because an emphasis on bodily beauty can harm our self-worth. Despite this, an appreciation of beauty, and its manifestation through art, could equip us with the tools we need to thrive in the modern world. Could beauty be a force of power? Or do we emphasise it too much— to the point where it’s destructive?

One of my most poignant memories is an excursion to the local national park in primary school. My class trudged through bush tracks to arrive at our first stop.

It was a rock.

But it was beautiful.

We had the privilege of having a First Nations man share some of the most ancient surviving art with us. Carved into the rock we surrounded was an outline of a kangaroo. Our guide had told told us that it had been there for thousands of years, used to communicate that kangaroos were in the area and to pay tribute to Indigenous peoples’ totems, an integral part of the Dreaming. Even as a young child, I had a sense that the mere existence of this carving was special because it was understood and observed by generations and generations of people. Every time I stumble around a gallery, I find myself awestruck by the scenes, memories and histories artists can capture. Art enables us to connect to our ancestors and enemies. It symbolises and provides a perspective on complex questions without definitive answers. It is undeniably a force of power.

Whilst images can be powerful, they also have the potential to disempower. The modern world emphasises beauty to an extent that may be damaging. Artistic interpretation recognises worldly and spiritual beauty, which empowers humanity. Yet, today’s society is more concerned with individual human beauty.

A focus on merely the human form and its physical attributes has the potential to reduce an individual’s self-worth. Rather than being connected through our shared human experience, we may focus on division based on mere physical features. With most of society using social media and adhering to its exhaustive expectations of beauty, I cannot help but feel we are forgetting that beauty is not merely defined by material things. Whereas the beauty in art is defined by the way in which it conveys meaning, emphasising other’s beauty, in the form of their body, inherently creates self-comparison. Such self-comparison can cause internal frustrations and feelings of inadequacy.

Whilst beauty standards definitely existed before the age of social media, it seems they were not revered to the extent they are today. In some cultures, particular physical features were seen as blessings or symbols of luck. But individuals’ worth seems to have been defined by much more than these physical features, which served more as an added ‘bonus’. Maybe we should take a page out of the book of our ancestors - we should have the autonomy to recognise physical beauty and admire it but steer clear from a reverence of it.

Ultimately, it feels as if society has become so intoxicated with physical beauty that they have forgotten the entire purpose of art and aesthetics; to connect us. Like Theo we seem to have made the pursuit of beauty a main purpose of our lives. However, unlike Theo, our pursuit of beauty has become superficial, seeking temporary validation from our peers.

Looking forward, beauty may continue to be a weapon if we continue to emphasise it through the lens of social media. But equally, it can be a tool to empower us. To combat the overemphasis on the corporeal today, perhaps we need to return to the purpose that beauty once served. As in the earliest forms of art, beauty could be to educate, communicate, connect and reflect. We should reject a distorted, material focus on beauty and praise messages of value-based meaning on social media. As The Goldfinch asserts, “You can look at a picture for a week and never think of it again. You can also look at a picture for a second and think of it all your life”. Let the pictures we don’t think twice about be those that hyper fixate on physical beauty. And let us instead contemplate those historical and cultural revelations that bring us together as a collective.

Art by Amanda Lim