An old joke states that once the New York Times has reported on a trend, it can be said to be over. For example, consider their profile of enthusiast Clavicular, a Looksmaxxing fashion representative who “believes in any step to increase his beauty to beauty.” About a month later, the young man was arrested in Florida on battery charges, which sounds like the symbolic death of Looksmaxxing. What self-respecting human beauty advocate would even consider a trip to Florida?
The new exhibition at Bozar in Brussels, “Bellezza e Bruttezza,” can argue that Looksmaxxing was always impossible, since you cannot separate beauty from its counterpart. The exhibition includes more than 90 works from the late 15th to the 16th century, including works by Sandro Botticelli, Titian, Leonardo da Vinci, Albrecht Dürer, Lucas Cranach The Elder and Quinten Metsys taken from more than 60 lenders, including the Uffizi, the Louvre and the Washington Art Museum at the Washington Gay Museum.
Curated by Chiara Rabbi Bernard, this play explores how the values of good and evil came together. This thesis is included in the work of da Vinci Large Head of a Woman in Profile (ca. 1490-1500). It’s only about the size of a playing card, done with a soft touch in light sepia ink, but it’s unforgettable. Da Vinci called these paintings “visi monstruosi,” and the old woman looks like a goblin, with her nose turned up so much that it resembles a nose. The bars around her udder mean she can open up to pull on you. These works were immediately popular and, as the catalog emphasizes, da Vinci was not trying to mock or sculpt his subjects. He pulled them because they were strong. They are compelling and magnetic, which is a key quality, whether we are talking about evil or virtue.
Lucas Cranach the Elder painted more than 40 versions of a couple with what we would today call a problematic age gap, where an older man flirts with a younger woman as she flashes her wallet. Three of those works appear in this exhibition, which is the most notable of them all Different Lovers (Old Man and Old Woman) (c. 1520-1522), one of only three times that he examined the text. With only three teeth left in her mouth, the old woman with the name sneered at the young man and shoved coins in her hand. In this painting, the greatest beauty can be found in his bag.
The poster image for this exhibition is by Frans Floris de Vriendt Pomona (1565). A scene from Ovid The Metamorphosescontaining Pomona in the luxury of her orchard, her breasts not numerous but dense, her skin plump like the fruit around her. He is in the process of disposing of the magnificent Pan, whose face is not so different from da Vinci’s old lady. The show seems to suggest that while good and evil are both compelling, the former may be explained by the rejection of the latter.
“Bellezza e Bruttezza: Beauty, Reality and Caricature in the Renaissance” is on view at Bozar in Brussels until June 14, 2026.
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