Too Beautiful?

For my book review, I am reading Beauty by Roger Scruton. In the first chapter, he brings up an interesting point about how some works of art can be too beautiful like Tennyson's In Memoriam or Faure's Requiem. He states, "Works that are too beautiful ravish when they should disturb or provide dreamy intoxication when what is needed is a gesture of harsh despair." (p16) Even though certain works are artistic achievements, they can also be just too beautiful or overly done. Beauty is a type of aesthetic success and everyone's idea of what is beautiful varies but there are universal works that people may see as just too beautiful. Sure, it's great when something takes our breath away but some artists can go over the top, like Scruton suggests.

Every piece of art has a message to communicate to the observer, in my opinion. Art displays all different kinds of emotions and feelings but sometimes this gets lost if a piece is too beautiful. The observer may be distracted by the aesthetics to understand why the artist made the piece, according to Scruton. After browsing all different works of art, I can not find any examples of art that is just over the top. I'm sure there are some out there, but all the pieces I found are just beautiful but not overly so, like Flaming June by Leighton and Claude Monet's Water Lilies. Although I think Scruton brings up a good point and I bet some art is too beautiful when it should be focusing on something else but I can't find any of my own examples...

My question to you is: Are there works of art that you see as breathtaking and does the beauty of the piece take away from the message/meaning in it? Basically, can beauty be too distracting?

"Flaming June"