The art that unsettles: Why do some works fascinate us with their ugliness?
Picture a room in the Prado Museum in Madrid. Visitors file past the Velázquezes and the Boschs, barely pausing before a series of dark, almost frightening canvases. Distorted faces, emaciated bodies, earthy colors that seem to ooze melancholy. These are Goya’s Black Paintings, created on the walls of his house in the final years of his life. At the time, no one would have dreamed of calling them “works of art.” Yet today, they draw crowds, captivate critics, and inspire generations of artists. Why? Because they embody that troubling paradox: what repels us can also enthrall us.
By Artedusa
••10 min readThis tension between ugliness and fascination is nothing new. It runs through the history of art like a hidden vein, revealing far more about us than about the works themselves. A failed painting, a grotesque sculpture, a provocative installation—these objects, often dismissed as “ugly,” become mirrors of our fears, our taboos, and sometimes our desire for transgression. But where does this attraction to what should repel us come from? And how can a work be both hated and adored?
01Ugliness, an invention of history
There was a time when beauty was a mathematical equation. The Greeks had codified it with their canons of proportion; the Byzantines had sanctified it in their icons with their fixed gazes. An “ugly” work was simply one that failed to respect these rules. Yet even in antiquity, certain forms of ugliness were tolerated, even sought after. African masks, with their exaggerated features, were not considered “ugly” by those who carved them—they were imbued with spiritual power. Ugliness, in short, does not exist in itself: it is a cultural construct, a judgment that evolves with the times.
Take the grotesques of the Renaissance. When fifteenth-century artists discovered the frescoes of Nero’s Domus Aurea, buried beneath Rome, they were both horrified and fascinated by these hybrid motifs, half-human, half-vegetal. These forms, deemed monstrous by the ancients, became a source of inspiration for Raphael and his contemporaries. Ugliness, here, was no longer a failure but a deliberate provocation, a game with the limits of the imagination.
In the nineteenth century, scandal changed sides. The Impressionists, with their blurry brushstrokes and garish colors, were called “damajor digital platformss” by critics. Monet and his Water Lilies? Mere blobs. Yet these canvases, now celebrated, were then seen as insults to academic art. Ugliness, in this case, was a weapon: it served to shake the certainties of a public accustomed to polished portraits and idealized landscapes.
Today, contemporary art has pushed this logic to its extreme. A work like Tracey Emin’s My Bed—an unmade bed surrounded by empty bottles, used condoms, and stained underwear—divided the public when it was shortlisted for the Turner Prize in 1999. Some saw it as a sham, others as a revolution. Yet this installation, as raw as it is, raises a fundamental question: what if ugliness were just another name for truth?
02When art becomes a mirror of our fears
There is something deeply human in our fascination with what disgusts us. Neuroscientists speak of a phenomenon called “disgust fascination”: our brain, programmed to avoid what is dangerous or unhealthy, is at the same time drawn to these same stimuli, as if we were trying to understand the nature of our own repulsion. Works of art that play with this ambiguity are often the ones that leave the most lasting impression.
Take Goya’s Saturn Devouring His Son. This painting, executed directly on the wall of his house, depicts the Titan Cronos (Saturn in Roman mythology) in the act of devouring one of his children. The composition is unbalanced, the colors reduced to ochres and blacks, and Saturn’s face distorted by murderous madness. In Goya’s time, this work was incomprehensible. Today, it has become a universal allegory of violence, of time that destroys everything, and of the madness that lurks. Why? Because it does not seek to please. It shows horror face-on, without embellishment, and it is precisely this rawness that makes it unforgettable.
Other artists have exploited this vein with a more political intent. Picasso’s Guernica, with its shredded bodies and screaming faces, is not a “beautiful” work in the classical sense. Yet it has become a symbol of resistance against barbarism. Ugliness, here, is not a flaw: it is a weapon. It forces the viewer to look at what they would rather ignore.
Even in contemporary art, this logic persists. Damien Hirst’s The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living—a shark preserved in formaldehyde—is a disturbing work. It does not seek to be aesthetic but to provoke reflection on death, preservation, and the boundary between art and science. The shark, with its gaping maw and jagged teeth, is both fascinating and repulsive. And it is precisely this tension that makes the work a masterpiece.
03Scandal as an artistic strategy
Some works only become fascinating because they were first hated. In these cases, scandal is not an accident: it is a deliberate strategy. Marcel Duchamp made it his specialty. In 1917, he submitted a porcelain urinal, signed “R. Mutt,” to a New York exhibition. The work, titled Fountain, was rejected. Yet today, it is considered one of the most influential pieces of the twentieth century. Why? Because it forced the art world to ask a fundamental question: what makes an object a work of art?
Duchamp was not trying to create something beautiful. He wanted to shake the very foundations of art. And he succeeded. Fountain is not a sculpture, nor a painting, nor even a work in the traditional sense. It is a mass-produced object, repurposed from its original function. Yet by placing it in an artistic context, Duchamp turned it into a symbol—a symbol of provocation, of the desecration of art, and of the artist’s absolute freedom.
Tracey Emin followed a similar path with My Bed. By exhibiting her unmade bed, surrounded by intimate and sordid objects, she shocked the British public. Yet this installation also sparked a debate about depression, sexuality, and vulnerability. My Bed is not a “beautiful” work, but it is deeply human. It shows what most people would rather hide: the mess, the suffering, the raw reality of life.
These artists do not seek to please. They seek to provoke, to question, and sometimes to change the world. And it is precisely this lack of compromise that makes their works so fascinating.
04Technique in the service of emotion
Ugliness in art is never gratuitous. Even when a work seems clumsy or crude, it often rests on a subtle technical mastery. Take Goya’s Black Paintings. At first glance, these canvases seem slapdash, with their thick brushstrokes and dark colors. Yet they are the result of long maturation. Goya, deaf and isolated in his Madrid house, painted these frescoes directly onto the walls, without preliminary sketches. The brushstrokes are quick, almost violent, but they convey a raw, immediate emotion.
The same goes for Cy Twombly’s Blackboard Paintings. These canvases, covered in white scribbles on a black background, resemble a schoolboy’s doodles. Yet Twombly was perfectly versed in classical techniques. His “scribbles” are in fact the product of a precise, repetitive, almost meditative gesture. They do not seek to represent something but to evoke a sensation: that of automatic writing, of the trace left by time.
In contemporary art, this logic reaches its peak. The materials used are often poor, even shocking. Hermann Nitsch, with his performances using blood and animal carcasses, pushes the viewer to their limits. Yet these works are not improvised. They are grounded in deep reflection on ritual, death, and transgression.
Even an installation like Tracey Emin’s My Bed, which seems disordered, is in reality carefully composed. Each object was chosen for its symbolic weight: the vodka bottles for intoxication, the condoms for sexuality, the stains on the sheets for illness. Nothing is left to chance. Ugliness, here, is a meticulous construction, designed to provoke a reaction.
05What ugliness reveals about us
If certain works fascinate us with their ugliness, it is perhaps because they reflect our own contradictions. We live in a society that values beauty, perfection, and control. Yet we are also drawn to what escapes these norms. “Ugly” works remind us that art does not have to be smooth, polished, or pleasant. It can be raw, unsettling, even repulsive.
This fascination also reveals something deeper: our need for transgression. A work like Andres Serrano’s Piss Christ—a crucifix submerged in the artist’s urine—shocks because it violates a taboo. Yet it is precisely this transgression that makes it a powerful work. It forces us to question the sanctification of art, the boundary between the sacred and the profane, and our own relationship to religion.
Similarly, Jenny Saville’s works, with their obese and distorted female bodies, challenge traditional beauty standards. They do not seek to please but to provoke reflection on the norm, on the way we look at bodies, and on the social pressure weighing on women.
In short, these “ugly” works fascinate us because they force us out of our comfort zone. They remind us that art does not have to be consensual. It can be subversive, political, or simply true.
06The legacy of unsettling works
Works that shocked their time often end up becoming classics. Duchamp’s Fountain, Picasso’s Guernica, Tracey Emin’s My Bed—all these pieces were first rejected, mocked, even censored. Yet today, they are studied in art schools, exhibited in the world’s greatest museums, and celebrated as milestones in the history of art.
This legacy can be partly explained by their ability to capture the spirit of their time. Guernica is inseparable from the Spanish Civil War, Fountain from the questioning of artistic institutions, My Bed from debates on mental health and sexuality. These works are not just aesthetic objects: they are testimonies.
They have also paved the way for new forms of expression. Without Duchamp, conceptual art would not exist. Without Goya, Expressionism might have remained stillborn. Without Tracey Emin, autobiographical art would not resonate in the same way.
Finally, these works have changed our relationship to art itself. They have taught us that art does not have to be beautiful to be profound. It can be ugly, provocative, or simply strange, and yet touch on something universal.
07What if ugliness were the new beauty?
In an era where algorithms dictate our tastes and social media traps us in aesthetic bubbles, unsettling works take on new importance. They remind us that art is not there to comfort us but to shake us up.
Perhaps that is the secret of their fascination. An “ugly” work is never neutral. It forces us to ask questions: why does this canvas disgust me? Why does this unmade bed make me uncomfortable? Why does this shark in formaldehyde fascinate me?
These questions, in the end, are more important than the answers. They remind us that art is not a consumer product but an experience. An experience that can be beautiful, ugly, unsettling, or all of these at once.
So the next time you find yourself in front of a work that seems “ugly,” don’t look away. Examine it closely. Question it. And remember: what unsettles you today might well become tomorrow’s masterpiece.