what is beauty?

I got in an argument at a party last week with another artist M, about what was beauty. she adamently argued there was only one kind of art that was valid, old russian masters, artists she said who knew how to paint, and "I hate Picasso". i said hell Picasso was one great draftsman, and she said he'd done some good works when he was younger, this meaning before he became a cubist and the later Picasso, and i don't paint like you either jamie, i paint like the Russian masters. I asked, you mean you don't like any of the expressionists, the Cobra movement, karel appel, asgar john, george basilitz, anselm kiefer? oh you mean the german neo expressive dullards, oh course not, garbage she replied. we were interupted by a well meaning neighbor, mr S who said something i forgot before i had a chance to launch a reply. later in the week i was looking at fashion magazines in the book section at DTS and i noticed every model in every magazine looked exactly alike. exactly the same concept of what was beautiful in a woman. the magazines sang this is beauty, the beauty society has declared as beauty and if you don't look like this you're not beautiful and well, go buy something to make yourself look like this. M's way, one way. Look, every society has done the same thing, the mayans flatened their heads, tattoed themselves, the japenese bound feet etc, etc. o.k. but we never see traces of any of this other beauty in our cultures idea of beauty, there's only one way, like the artist M's idea of art, the old masters european model. To the conquerers goes beauty. sunday I was at the brothers getting my coffee and i looked over my shoulder and noticed this guy in a black sports coat, nice coat i said looking at the fiber, corderoy, he said and then i noticed his face, dark, very wide, high cheek bones, large ears and short hair, very indigenous , no trace of an acccent when he spoke and i was struck by the picture of the two images, one image i'd seen in the bay area every day, a young executive type in a natty coat off to work, but the face in the coffee shop didn't fit the picture of what i'd been used to seeing in that natty coat. I almost poured the coffee on the floor. see, even i had gotten used to looking in one way of how reality was supposed to be. i'd stereo typed my business executive. part of the problem is that's mostly all i'd ever seen before, that one way, the old european masters portrait of a young business executive. when julie and i took a trip to mexico we went in to a book store and bought art books on mexican artists we'd never heard of before, Chuco reyes, Lebeya, other great artists, and i said why haven't i ever heard of these people before, i've been robbed, kept away from these artists, cheated out of their vision of beauty. there's another party this weekend and M the artist has been invited, i've been planning my rebutal argument all week, and here's how it will end, with me exclaiming, so you're saying if i don't paint like the old russian masters and like you, there's absolutely no place for a painter like me and what you're really saying is i don't even exist. if you can't see it then it doesn't exist. man, that's arrogance. jgk