There is, however, a fourth aspect of ugliness, and that is the
esoteric postulation of the value "ugly" by the creator. I have shown
how creating also involves giving, and therefore loss--just as
procreation does; but what is the precise meaning of the word "ugly" in
the mouth of the Dionysian artist?
We must remember that his eyes are not our eyes, and that his mind is
not our mind. He cannot look at Life without enriching her. But what is
his attitude to the transfigurations of former artists?
Before these the Dionysian artist can feel only loathing, and, in
a paroxysm of hatred, he raises his axe and shatters the past into
fragments. All around him, a moment before, people said: "The world
is beautiful!" But he, thoroughly alone, groans at its unspeakable
ugliness.
He rejoices as he sees the fragments fly beneath his mighty weapon,
and the greater the beauty of the thing he destroys, the higher is his
exultation. For, to him, "the joy in the destruction of the most noble
thing and at the sight of its gradual undoing," is "the joy over what
is coming and what lies in the future," and this "triumphs over actual
things, however good they may be."[1]
What he calls "ugly," then, has nothing whatsoever in common with any
other concept of ugliness; it is simply the outcome of his creative
spirit "which compels him to regard what has existed hitherto as no
longer acceptable, but as botched, worthy of being suppressed--ugly!"[2]
And thus it is peculiar to him alone.
I have shown you that Nietzsche explains pleasure, æsthetically, as
the appropriation of the world by man's Will to Power. Pain, or evil,
now obtains its æsthetic justification. It is the outcome of the
destruction that the creator spreads in a world of Becoming; it is the
periodical smashing of Being by the Dionysian creator who can endure
Becoming. No creator can tolerate the past save as a thing which once
served as his schooling. But a people are usually one with their past.
To them it is at once a grandfather, a father, and an elder brother.
In a trice the creator deprives them of these relatives. Through him
they are made orphans, brotherless and alone. Hence the pain that is
inevitably associated with the joy of destruction and of creation.
Not only a creative genius, however, but also a creative age, may use
the word ugly in this Dionysian sense. For a robust and rich people
scorn to treasure and to hoard that which has gone before. And thus our
museums, alone, are perhaps the greatest betrayal of our times.