Sylvana Burns

Beauty is the Promise of Happiness, comes from a quote found in the 19th-century French writer Stendhal’s novel On Love (De l’amour) published in 1822. The context for “beauty is the promise of happiness” stems from a discussion about the relationship between beauty and emotions, specially beauty and its affects on love. On Love, explores the complexities of emotions, the experience of falling in love and the profound impact that beauty can have on our states and feelings. Moreover, Stendhal complicates the matter of love and beauty by remarking that something beautiful can create a sense of promise or anticipation which is that of happiness within us. As we all know, love is one of the most beautiful yet painful human experience. All cultures have the notion of heartbreak which is quite literally and figuratively, our hearts breaking. It is said that On Love was prompted by Stendhal’s hopeless love for Métilde Dembowski, which in Spanish we would call a case of desamor (des- without, amor- love). In Desire/Love, Lauren Berlant, describes desire as “a state of attachment to something or someone, and the cloud of possibility that is generated by the gap between an object’s specificity and the needs and promises projected onto it” (Berlant, 2012, p .6). What this means, is that our objects (attachments) are not objective but a mirage created by our desire and the promises we anticipated from satisfying that desire.

The first thing we are confronted with is a 12 meters long black triangle with a highly saturated white text stretched before us on the ground that leads to another triangle with an entrance and the repetition of Beauty is the Promise of Happiness inscribed on its walls. Beauty is the Promise of Happiness begins at the tip of the nexus uniting two lines that form into an expanding triangle that reads 5th-4th B.C. Greece Archaic Period. As is it commonly known, Ancient Greece inspired pretty much all Western thought, art and politics that came after it. In a project interested in mapping out origins, myths and societal constructs, Ancient Greece seemed the most fitting era to open Beauty is the Promise of Happiness. The text on the ground triangle is comprised of direct quotes and fragments of myths, literature, philosophy, religion and politics about women from Ancient Greece to the Victorians. It is meant to be lengthy and tedious, it has to be walked over completely for the spectator to be able to enter the installation. It is designed to look and be experienced as endless, saturated and heavy as a means of feeling language and the historical burden driving us women mad.