will ugliness save the world? – The Express

the State has inspired confidence since the Revolution but for

To hell with diets, indoor sports and all-out Botox injections. At a time when our colleagues only talk about summer bodysuit, L’Express offers counter-programming: what if light was found in the broad palette of ugliness more than in a so-called normative beauty? A priori, no one dreams of being 1.52 meters tall like Toulouse-Lautrec or of being affected by hirsutism like the bearded lady Jane Barnell (seen in the cult film Freaks by Tod Browning) – at least they both left a mark on history when so many smooth playboys faded into obscurity. If Dostoyevsky wrote, in The Idiotthat “beauty will save the world”, we must recall an episode of his life to understand what he meant.

At the end of his Praise of the ugly (Perrin), Pierre-Louis Lensel evokes the four years that the young Dostoyevsky spent in the Omsk penal colony. In the polar cold, among cockroaches, fleas and lice, he is mistreated by other inmates. And yet, as he notes in a letter to his brother Mikhail: “Even in the penal colony, among the bandits, I ended up, in four years, distinguishing men. Will you believe me: there are deep characters, strong, magnificent, and what a joy to discover, under the coarse bark, gold And not one or two, but several. Some command respect, others are decidedly magnificent. Lensel sees in this experience an echo of Saint Paul’s phrase: “Where sin abounds, grace abounds.”

Reflection on physical difference

If ugliness is an end, it is not an end, and can lead to a form of beauty. Victor Hugo did not think otherwise, he who was capable of valorizing characters such as the hunchback Quasimodo (in Notre Dame de Paris) or the disfigured innocent Gwynplaine (in The man who Laughs). Lensel follows in this wake, defending in his book in the form of a gallery of portraits both Toulouse-Lautrec and Jane Barnell, but also Madame Palatine, the broken face Albert Jugon, Mickey Rooney, Sainte-Beuve, Jeanne de France, Klaus Nomi, Danton, Anne of Cleves and the prognathous king Charles II.

When we ask Lensel, also deputy editor-in-chief ofHistory and writer for the show Franck Ferrand tells on Radio Classique, how this strange book was born, it confirms its desire to go against the dictates of our time: This book has been on my mind for a long time. In this period where very standardized forms of beauty tend to impose themselves, a reflection on physical difference seemed stimulating to me. Furthermore, I have always been attracted by poorly regarded characters, forced to fight to be accepted or recognized – this was already the case with my biography of the Duke of Maine, natural son of Louis XIV. But I would say that the idea was mainly born from two main observations. The first is the astonishing denial that I have often noticed around true ugliness: while we speak without hesitation of physical beauty, we sometimes have difficulty admitting that a person can be ugly.

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The second observation, he explains, is linked to his job as an author for radio programs devoted to historical figures: “I am often struck by how much the body and what it reflects come into play in the itineraries However, here too, I am surprised that this dimension can sometimes be underestimated, as if it were not correct or of little relevance to be interested in it… I believe that it is enough for everyone to look at their own. own life to recognize that his physique, the way he is perceived and the way we look at him deep down, have important impacts on his career, his opportunities and his decisions. I wanted to talk about this subject through strong examples. , which are out of the ordinary; and praise self-improvement in the face of a world which, too often, rejects ugliness or, in believing it is doing the right thing, denies its existence – and, thereby, the trials it brings. implies. Toulouse-Lautrec or Jane Barnell would not have had the same life if they had been beautiful or even common…”

Before deciding on the selection of the 11 models whose portraits he painted, Lensel first established a list of around thirty people. We then had to decide: “My criterion was then to find various ways of experiencing ugliness, so that the stories respond to and complete each other, in a kind of game of mirrors. I also wanted to vary the eras, without going too far. far in time, and the physical types This imposed choices on me: for example, I kept Danton and gave up Mirabeau. This leaves me with some frustrations, I admit, but I wanted to avoid a repetitive aspect. so that each story brings new ideas on the very varied consequences of ugliness and the ways of transcending them.”

Self-deprecation is in order

Praise of the ugly can be read out of order, each drawing according to their taste in terms of historical periods and human characters. Lensel sketches all his antiheroes with empathy, erudition and style. Those who worry about consanguinity will remember with sadness the fate of Charles II. Readers of Lives of Saints will primarily focus on the case of Joan of France, the ugly wife of King Louis XII, who was repudiated by her husband and ended up canonized. Pop fans will start with Klaus Nomi, the self-conscious German with the voice of a castrato who knew how to mix opera and the avant-garde, invented an improbable look and died of AIDS while fame was reaching out to him. finally the arms.

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It is often a question of eccentricity, even dandyism, in this way full of panache that these marginal people had of turning faults into qualities. Self-deprecation is in order. The proof with this self-portrait of Madame Palatine, the voluminous and truculent sister-in-law of Louis XIV: “I have always been ugly and have become even more so since smallpox. My size is more than monstrous; I am square like a die. My skin is red with yellow spots, I’m starting to turn gray and my hair is salt and pepper, my forehead and my eyes are all wrinkled, my nose is still crooked but very embroidered with smallpox. I have flat cheeks, a double chin, spoiled teeth. Here is my pretty face.

As much as we have fun with the chapter on Madame Palatine, the one on Albert Jugon tugs at the heart. In 1914, at the age of 23, he lost an eye and half of his face in combat. Despite the pain and depression, he overcomes the shame and rebuilds himself. On June 28, 1919, he was one of the five broken faces who sat at the Treaty of Versailles to recall the horror of war. Then Jugon finds a job in a bank, gets married, becomes a father. In 1921 the Union of Facial Wounds was born, whose motto was: “Smile all the same.” With self-sacrifice and philanthropy, Jugon invested himself in it. He morally supported the mutilated soldiers of the Second World War and the Indochina War until his death in 1959…

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Further in Lensel’s book, we come across Danton’s famous words to his executioner: “You will show my head to the people: it is worth it!” Not to be confused with the “Because I’m worth it” of the interchangeable muses of L’Oréal. All the rare birds gathered in Praise of the ugly worth the detour. “The beauty of ugly things is seen without delay,” sang Gainsbourg. Thanks to Lensel’s historical lighting, their particular genius comes to light.

Praise of the ugly, by Pierre-Louis Lensel. Perrin, 278 p., €22.

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