It would require a fairly dim child not to notice his or her own eventually.Originally Posted by cl154576
It would require a fairly dim child not to notice his or her own eventually.
"If the national mental illness of the United States is megalomania, that of Canada is paranoid schizophrenia."
- Margaret Atwood
That's mainly what I was referring to. There were other comments that specifically mentioned children and the nudity of children being beautiful. To me, it's just odd to point that out.
Alexander, I'm not viewing everyone as pedophiles. That's why I directed the comment to those who brought up the subject. I also never said anything about overly bundling kids up at swimming pools, or any such nonsense.
IF there were any posters actually seeking to look at children naked, I personally would find that very gross. I grew up on beaches. I never took a moment to stop and stare in awe at someone's naked child. That's just not my thing. There's nothing wrong with me saying so. I'm sorry if I have offended the people who didn't get the impression I did from certain comments, but I think it's an overreaction for non-pedophiles to be offended by what I said.
As to the American obsession with hiding kids, I'll thank you not to lump me in with zealots. My community is warm and easy going and I've never said or done anything to rain on its sunshine. I'm anti-censorship. You have me all wrong, Alexander. I'm withdrawing from the conversation. Peace be with you.
Osho actually said that teenagers seek out pornographic material, which seems quite obvious to anyone who has ever been male and a teenager.
"If the national mental illness of the United States is megalomania, that of Canada is paranoid schizophrenia."
- Margaret Atwood
I'm not the first person to bring this up, but apologies to all.
In my experience quite a lot of girls watch porn and self-cater themselves too. Though amongst girls it is more taboo to talk of such things, especially when guys can hear.
For guys there is hardly any taboo in discussing porn or masturbation, it is as common as discussing sports.
Though porn really needs to step up its game. The plot lines are affected and the characterization is shallow and confusing. And the dialogue is never witty, and never interesting, it just is there like an ugly vase at the center of the livign room.
New characters are never introduced properly, and the characters never seem to have motives for their actions - why is samantha upset with her husband, and replacing him with the pizza boy steve - what is the conflict between the spouses, why does steve not consider the moral implications of his actions, is he a believer in libertinism and the pursuit of pleasure being the chief aim of life, or is there some more mysterious implication to his acts, could he be a religious zealot who wants to procreate for the sake of baring as many children as possible? These things are all unexplored in these movies, and they really ought to expand upon such things. It would make for a far more aesthetically captivating work of art.
There are so many questions which permeate our minds and yet our only answers are loud and unintelligible moans in the wind...
SLG (quoted)-Seriously... the issue of public nudity is quite relevant when it comes to the visual arts. Vonny spoke of "the disgusting "art" that appears on the forum" and while I agree that some art can be challenging... disturbing... even "disgusting" the question always comes down to who is making these judgments. What is "beautiful" to one person can be "disgusting" to another... especially, it seems, when it comes to nudity in art... at least in the US.
The "art" that I call disgusting would be considered disgusting by any normal person. Even you are aware when you put up something that is really offensive to many people, and even to yourself.
Vonny... I think you assume too much when it comes to a universal concept of what is "disgusting" in art. Take, for example, this painting by Lucian Freud:
Until his death barely one month ago, Freud was quite probably the greatest living figurative painter... if not the greatest living painter, period. His paintings demanded a price tag of some $5 million right off the easel, and this particular painting of Sue Tilley ("Big Sue") entitled Benefits Supervisor Sleeping achieved the highest ever price for a painting by a living artist $33 million US+. This would seem to suggest a certain demand for his work in spite of the imagery that is unquestionably unsettling. The painting is clearly, in one sense, a parody of the traditional theme of the sexually attractive nude on the couch or the "odalisque".
Francois Boucher- Mademoiselle O'Murphy
Unlike an artist like Boucher, Freud is an absolute realist. He refuses to romanticize what he sees. He follows in the tradition of Rembrandt, who envisioned Bathsheba not as some young seductress, but rather as a middle-aged woman whose body clearly show the effects of the passage of time and the "ravages" of childbirth:
Rembrandt van Rijn- Bathsheba
Rembrandt, however, unlike Freud, is a deeply spiritual individual. His Bathsheba glows with an inner light... combined with the artist's mastery at capturing a profound sense of character or personality. We can sense her deep and saddened thoughts as she contemplates the missive from King David and all it entails.
Freud, however, is an artist of the 20th century... coming upon painting following the Second World War. He is an existentialist... a cynic if not a nihilist. To Freud, all there is to humanity is what we have in this life... what he sees. The human being is no different from the animal... or meat, that is slowly dying... rotting away.
Such are not pretty ideas. But since when has art been about only pretty ideas. Death and warfare and tragedy and human frailty and mortality have long been among the central themes of art, music, and literature. The challenge for the artist is to present these in an aesthetic manner that suggests a transformation of the facts of everyday reality and even tragedy and ugliness into something new... something aesthetically "beautiful". And certainly there is a disturbing beauty in Freud's painting... as there is in Hamlet's death or the Passion of Christ as imagined by Rembrandt or J.S. Bach.
I don't understand why many people get a charge out of being offensive to other people. So much of what people do, the way they dress and so forth, is simply for the purpose of being offensive. This is something I don't understand.
As I already admitted, there is art that is disturbing, offensive, even ugly. Some of it is still great art. I think immediately of Goya's images of the horrors of the Napoleonic Wars as they raged through his native Spain. A great deal of "disturbing" or "offensive" art, however, is the result of little more than a sophomoric attempt to shock by immature artists who imagine that such is an essential element of great art. These artists are not far removed from the "naughty boy" acting out in an inappropriate manner... using "dirty" words etc... because it gains him the attention he so desires. And unfortunately, such is the effect in the art world. The artist makes paintings with elephant sh** and glitter and gives the resulting paintings blasphemous titles like Sh** Madonna and certain critics and collectors take notice. After all... the artist has succeeded in shocking and from what they remember (which admittedly is very little) of art history, they remember how much of the great art of the past initially shocked.
Of course the goal of the great artists of the past was never to shock. Manet, Monet, Degas, Picasso, etc... never set out to shock. The shock was simply the result of an unfamiliarity with a new formal language that has been developed by the artists in order to best express their perceptions of life as they experienced it. Renoir is today seen as a painter of some of the most "beautiful" paintings... paintings that often verge dangerously close to "pretty". He was quite likely one of the least audacious of the Impressionists... and yet a painting such as this caused outrage:
When Renoir exhibited this painting, critics mocked the nude as having the appearance of gangrenous meat hung up to age for a week. This criticism was piled upon the criticism of his loose "unfinished" impressionistic brushwork. Of course Renoir had no intention of shocking. As with all the Impressionists, he intended to capture something of the rapidly changing play of light and color... he sought to suggest the dappled effect of light and shadow upon the naked flesh of his model... and in this he was quite effective. Today we don't think twice about the notion of blue and red shadows thanks to the Impressionists.
I don't mind looking at Titian's Venus. My problem that I have, which may be my own personal problem, is that often there is so much at once that it overwhelms my circuits somehow.
Certainly, we all have our own tolerance level when it comes to visual or aural stimuli. On my first trip to New York I spent the first four days wandering through the Metropolitan Museum of Art... (a virtual city in itself with a population quite likely larger than that of your home town on any given day) for nearly 8 hours each day. By Friday I was so overwhelmed I could not look at anymore art... in spite of the fact that as an artist I am obsessed with art. We spent the last few days wandering about the city... sitting in Central Park... watching street performers near the Fulton Fish Market... walking to the Brooklyn Bridge, etc...
SLG Quoted- It would seem that such Puritanism still remains a part of American culture... in spite of the growth of pornography. Indeed... considering figures such as Jerry Falwell, it seems that this Puritanism is something of a bizarre for of hypocrisy in which certain "holier-than-thou" individuals would dictate sexual morals to others which they feel free to dispense with themselves. The Attorney General, John Ashcroft, famously covered the figure of Justice (how sybolic) with blue curtains rather than allow himself to be photographed before a Neo-Classical figure with a bared breast. As Varene stated earlier, extreme violence in films is afforded less censorship that nudity. Someone noted a while back that you can blow up a breast in the movies with impunity, but don't even think about showing someone caressing a breast without facing that possible NC-17 rating. Around the time of Ashcroft's great breast cover-up there were discussions about the possibility of Michelangelo's David traveling to the US for exhibition at the National Gallery. The discussions never amounted to anything... no doubt in part owing to Ashcroft's public statement that if the David did enter the US it would need to be appropriately fitted with a fig leaf or loin cloth.
I bolded that top sentence. Why is it that "Puritans" aren't supposed to be in America? Why are we supposed to have all porn and no Puritans? To me the politics (which are totally disgusting to me) is a separate issue. But why are the Mennonites, Hutterites and Amish to be eliminated?
Of course I used the term "Puritans" to denote those who would attempt to impose their morality upon others... rather as the original Puritans did in England which resulted in their virtual expulsion. How much do you know of the history of the Puritans beyond that which was presented in rather idealized light as part of grade-school American history? The noble Pilgrims were not exactly the most noble beings. take a look at the Salem Witch Trials, Hawthorne's Scarlet Letter or their role in English Reformation including the banning of the theater, the banning of music in religious ceremony (which led to the destruction of many church organs), the elimination of erotic or love poetry with the exception of the Biblical Song of Solomon, the unquestioned bowing to authority... including to the church leaders... the wife to her husband, and the child to his or her parents. Individual will and desire were to be destroyed.
I HATE porn. Do I have a right to hate porn? It's fine with me if you LOVE porn. I don't care at all what you do in your bedroom. In fact, I have no wish to change anything you do on the forum.
What you have just written, of course, is vastly removed from the Puritanical strain of which I speak that would impose restrictions upon what others do in their bedrooms based upon their own beliefs (and as in the example of Jerry Falwell, these beliefs are quite often rather hypocritical. "Pornography" of course is as much in the eye of the beholder as "beauty"... or "disgust". Some would define Titian's nude Venus as "disgusting pornography to this day. Some would define any sexual activity beyond that intended for procreation as "disgusting". This would include many heterosexual activities as well homosexuality, in all certainty.
Again, you read me wrong if you assume I am arguing for an open proliferation of pornography. Rather, I am questioning the presumed right of some to not only judge but impose laws against the rights of others to engage in whatever sexual activities they wish within the privacy of their own homes... as long as it is between consenting adults and hurts no one. I am also questioning the hypocrisy of nation in which pornography is a major industry to such a degree that even mainstream companies such as Disney are involved (under the name of subsidiary companies of course)... while at the same time attempting to censor art works... such as Michelangelo's David (as discussed above). I also question the priorities of a nation in which images and narratives and video-games of extreme violence are fully accepted, and yet images or narratives involving a breast or a penis or the mere suggestion of physical love are to be deemed "pornographic" and "obscene".
I want you to do what you want and I want to do what I want. I do learn a lot from you. In fact, all of this debate has been educational. But in my daily life there is no porn. I don't know why I hate porn so much, but it goes against the fiber of my being. I'm very grateful that where I live there are no strip clubs or prostitutes or anything like that.
There are plenty such venues near me... and you just might be surprised when it comes to prostitution just where it might be found... even in your neck of the woods. I even have a stripper in the family.personally, I think the last time I visited a strip club was on the occasion of the bachelor party of a friend a good number of years back. I can't say I find the experience goes against every fiber of my being. Actually, as an artist I was quite taken by the almost surreal nature of the experience... naked bodies glowing under black lights and red neon beer signs. Indeed, I remember an almost comic aspect as a great number of the men in the club all but ignored the girls as they watched the ball game on the TV set as the Indians were vying for the playoffs.
I'm also disgusted by all forms of self-mutilation - tattoos, piercings. I don't want to stop people from doing it, but it disturbs me and I don't like to see it if I can avoid it. If I come here and see this trash...
You may hate such things... personally I have no tattoos or piercings myself... they hadn't yet become fashionable when I was a teen. I don't make assumption, however, about the individual who do choose to express themselves in this manner... nor would I refer to them as "trash".
Taking those kids to skinny dip is great! Kids shouldn't be taught to be ashamed of their bodies and not be allowed to have fun.
Bingo! Vonny! This is what I am speaking of in my diatribe against Puritanism. I am not calling out for a free-for-all public orgy or pornography on demand on the public airwaves. I am suggesting, however, that there is something wrong when we promote the notion that the human body and sexuality is something "filthy", "dirty" or taboo that needs to be hidden away and never referred to.
New characters are never introduced properly, and the characters never seem to have motives for their actions - why is samantha upset with her husband, and replacing him with the pizza boy steve - what is the conflict between the spouses, why does steve not consider the moral implications of his actions, is he a believer in libertinism and the pursuit of pleasure being the chief aim of life, or is there some more mysterious implication to his acts, could he be a religious zealot who wants to procreate for the sake of baring as many children as possible? These things are all unexplored in these movies, and they really ought to expand upon such things. It would make for a far more aesthetically captivating work of art.
There are so many questions which permeate our minds and yet our only answers are loud and unintelligible moans in the wind...
I agree with a number of critics... including a number of feminist art critics, who refuse to define ART and PORNOGRAPHY as separate entities. PORNOGRAPHY... like LANDSCAPE or STILL LIFE is a genre... a subdivision of ART. Unfortunately, the vast majority of PORNOGRAPHIC ART is simply BAD or worse than bad... and this is owed largely to the fact that the subject is so taboo. The Japanese Ukiyo-e print artists thought nothing of making pornographic images... Shunga... illustrating "pillow books" or sex manuals for newlyweds. Many of these are absolutely spectacular works of art. The same can be said of the Hindu sculpture at the Kandariya Mahadeva temple as well as many Greek and Roman examples of erotica. There are any number of big name "art stars" today involved in painting pornographic images... but in most instances these come off as sophomoric... sad attempts by immature artists to garner attention through the transgression of the taboo... not a heart-flet expression of an embrace of sexuality.
Beware of the man with just one book. -Ovid
The man who doesn't read good books has no advantage over the man who can't read them.- Mark Twain
My Blog: Of Delicious Recoil
http://stlukesguild.tumblr.com/
For anybody in support of public nudity:
"L'art de la statistique est de tirer des conclusions erronèes a partir de chiffres exacts." Napoléon Bonaparte.
"Je crois que beaucoup de gens sont dans cet état d’esprit: au fond, ils ne sentent pas concernés par l’Histoire. Mais pourtant, de temps à autre, l’Histoire pose sa main sur eux." Michel Houellebecq.
Brian/Emil is always a master at dragging the conversation to its lowest common denominator with a well-placed image.
Beware of the man with just one book. -Ovid
The man who doesn't read good books has no advantage over the man who can't read them.- Mark Twain
My Blog: Of Delicious Recoil
http://stlukesguild.tumblr.com/
I find the latest picture strangely erotic...
Marvelous paintings. I like them and speaking honestly I enjoy such paintings whether you call pornographic or erotic, it has a beauty par excellence. Everybody unconsciously wants to see the secret inside us though outwardly we become pretentious since we are censured by society.SLG (quoted)-Seriously... the issue of public nudity is quite relevant when it comes to the visual arts. Vonny spoke of "the disgusting "art" that appears on the forum" and while I agree that some art can be challenging... disturbing... even "disgusting" the question always comes down to who is making these judgments. What is "beautiful" to one person can be "disgusting" to another... especially, it seems, when it comes to nudity in art... at least in the US.
The "art" that I call disgusting would be considered disgusting by any normal person. Even you are aware when you put up something that is really offensive to many people, and even to yourself.
Vonny... I think you assume too much when it comes to a universal concept of what is "disgusting" in art. Take, for example, this painting by Lucian Freud:
Until his death barely one month ago, Freud was quite probably the greatest living figurative painter... if not the greatest living painter, period. His paintings demanded a price tag of some $5 million right off the easel, and this particular painting of Sue Tilley ("Big Sue") entitled Benefits Supervisor Sleeping achieved the highest ever price for a painting by a living artist $33 million US+. This would seem to suggest a certain demand for his work in spite of the imagery that is unquestionably unsettling. The painting is clearly, in one sense, a parody of the traditional theme of the sexually attractive nude on the couch or the "odalisque".
Francois Boucher- Mademoiselle O'Murphy
Unlike an artist like Boucher, Freud is an absolute realist. He refuses to romanticize what he sees. He follows in the tradition of Rembrandt, who envisioned Bathsheba not as some young seductress, but rather as a middle-aged woman whose body clearly show the effects of the passage of time and the "ravages" of childbirth:
Rembrandt van Rijn- Bathsheba
Rembrandt, however, unlike Freud, is a deeply spiritual individual. His Bathsheba glows with an inner light... combined with the artist's mastery at capturing a profound sense of character or personality. We can sense her deep and saddened thoughts as she contemplates the missive from King David and all it entails.
Freud, however, is an artist of the 20th century... coming upon painting following the Second World War. He is an existentialist... a cynic if not a nihilist. To Freud, all there is to humanity is what we have in this life... what he sees. The human being is no different from the animal... or meat, that is slowly dying... rotting away.
Such are not pretty ideas. But since when has art been about only pretty ideas. Death and warfare and tragedy and human frailty and mortality have long been among the central themes of art, music, and literature. The challenge for the artist is to present these in an aesthetic manner that suggests a transformation of the facts of everyday reality and even tragedy and ugliness into something new... something aesthetically "beautiful". And certainly there is a disturbing beauty in Freud's painting... as there is in Hamlet's death or the Passion of Christ as imagined by Rembrandt or J.S. Bach.
I don't understand why many people get a charge out of being offensive to other people. So much of what people do, the way they dress and so forth, is simply for the purpose of being offensive. This is something I don't understand.
As I already admitted, there is art that is disturbing, offensive, even ugly. Some of it is still great art. I think immediately of Goya's images of the horrors of the Napoleonic Wars as they raged through his native Spain. A great deal of "disturbing" or "offensive" art, however, is the result of little more than a sophomoric attempt to shock by immature artists who imagine that such is an essential element of great art. These artists are not far removed from the "naughty boy" acting out in an inappropriate manner... using "dirty" words etc... because it gains him the attention he so desires. And unfortunately, such is the effect in the art world. The artist makes paintings with elephant sh** and glitter and gives the resulting paintings blasphemous titles like Sh** Madonna and certain critics and collectors take notice. After all... the artist has succeeded in shocking and from what they remember (which admittedly is very little) of art history, they remember how much of the great art of the past initially shocked.
Of course the goal of the great artists of the past was never to shock. Manet, Monet, Degas, Picasso, etc... never set out to shock. The shock was simply the result of an unfamiliarity with a new formal language that has been developed by the artists in order to best express their perceptions of life as they experienced it. Renoir is today seen as a painter of some of the most "beautiful" paintings... paintings that often verge dangerously close to "pretty". He was quite likely one of the least audacious of the Impressionists... and yet a painting such as this caused outrage:
When Renoir exhibited this painting, critics mocked the nude as having the appearance of gangrenous meat hung up to age for a week. This criticism was piled upon the criticism of his loose "unfinished" impressionistic brushwork. Of course Renoir had no intention of shocking. As with all the Impressionists, he intended to capture something of the rapidly changing play of light and color... he sought to suggest the dappled effect of light and shadow upon the naked flesh of his model... and in this he was quite effective. Today we don't think twice about the notion of blue and red shadows thanks to the Impressionists.
I don't mind looking at Titian's Venus. My problem that I have, which may be my own personal problem, is that often there is so much at once that it overwhelms my circuits somehow.
Certainly, we all have our own tolerance level when it comes to visual or aural stimuli. On my first trip to New York I spent the first four days wandering through the Metropolitan Museum of Art... (a virtual city in itself with a population quite likely larger than that of your home town on any given day) for nearly 8 hours each day. By Friday I was so overwhelmed I could not look at anymore art... in spite of the fact that as an artist I am obsessed with art. We spent the last few days wandering about the city... sitting in Central Park... watching street performers near the Fulton Fish Market... walking to the Brooklyn Bridge, etc...
SLG Quoted- It would seem that such Puritanism still remains a part of American culture... in spite of the growth of pornography. Indeed... considering figures such as Jerry Falwell, it seems that this Puritanism is something of a bizarre for of hypocrisy in which certain "holier-than-thou" individuals would dictate sexual morals to others which they feel free to dispense with themselves. The Attorney General, John Ashcroft, famously covered the figure of Justice (how sybolic) with blue curtains rather than allow himself to be photographed before a Neo-Classical figure with a bared breast. As Varene stated earlier, extreme violence in films is afforded less censorship that nudity. Someone noted a while back that you can blow up a breast in the movies with impunity, but don't even think about showing someone caressing a breast without facing that possible NC-17 rating. Around the time of Ashcroft's great breast cover-up there were discussions about the possibility of Michelangelo's David traveling to the US for exhibition at the National Gallery. The discussions never amounted to anything... no doubt in part owing to Ashcroft's public statement that if the David did enter the US it would need to be appropriately fitted with a fig leaf or loin cloth.
I bolded that top sentence. Why is it that "Puritans" aren't supposed to be in America? Why are we supposed to have all porn and no Puritans? To me the politics (which are totally disgusting to me) is a separate issue. But why are the Mennonites, Hutterites and Amish to be eliminated?
Of course I used the term "Puritans" to denote those who would attempt to impose their morality upon others... rather as the original Puritans did in England which resulted in their virtual expulsion. How much do you know of the history of the Puritans beyond that which was presented in rather idealized light as part of grade-school American history? The noble Pilgrims were not exactly the most noble beings. take a look at the Salem Witch Trials, Hawthorne's Scarlet Letter or their role in English Reformation including the banning of the theater, the banning of music in religious ceremony (which led to the destruction of many church organs), the elimination of erotic or love poetry with the exception of the Biblical Song of Solomon, the unquestioned bowing to authority... including to the church leaders... the wife to her husband, and the child to his or her parents. Individual will and desire were to be destroyed.
I HATE porn. Do I have a right to hate porn? It's fine with me if you LOVE porn. I don't care at all what you do in your bedroom. In fact, I have no wish to change anything you do on the forum.
What you have just written, of course, is vastly removed from the Puritanical strain of which I speak that would impose restrictions upon what others do in their bedrooms based upon their own beliefs (and as in the example of Jerry Falwell, these beliefs are quite often rather hypocritical. "Pornography" of course is as much in the eye of the beholder as "beauty"... or "disgust". Some would define Titian's nude Venus as "disgusting pornography to this day. Some would define any sexual activity beyond that intended for procreation as "disgusting". This would include many heterosexual activities as well homosexuality, in all certainty.
Again, you read me wrong if you assume I am arguing for an open proliferation of pornography. Rather, I am questioning the presumed right of some to not only judge but impose laws against the rights of others to engage in whatever sexual activities they wish within the privacy of their own homes... as long as it is between consenting adults and hurts no one. I am also questioning the hypocrisy of nation in which pornography is a major industry to such a degree that even mainstream companies such as Disney are involved (under the name of subsidiary companies of course)... while at the same time attempting to censor art works... such as Michelangelo's David (as discussed above). I also question the priorities of a nation in which images and narratives and video-games of extreme violence are fully accepted, and yet images or narratives involving a breast or a penis or the mere suggestion of physical love are to be deemed "pornographic" and "obscene".
I want you to do what you want and I want to do what I want. I do learn a lot from you. In fact, all of this debate has been educational. But in my daily life there is no porn. I don't know why I hate porn so much, but it goes against the fiber of my being. I'm very grateful that where I live there are no strip clubs or prostitutes or anything like that.
There are plenty such venues near me... and you just might be surprised when it comes to prostitution just where it might be found... even in your neck of the woods. I even have a stripper in the family.
I'm also disgusted by all forms of self-mutilation - tattoos, piercings. I don't want to stop people from doing it, but it disturbs me and I don't like to see it if I can avoid it. If I come here and see this trash...
You may hate such things... personally I have no tattoos or piercings myself... they hadn't yet become fashionable when I was a teen. I don't make assumption, however, about the individual who do choose to express themselves in this manner... nor would I refer to them as "trash".
Taking those kids to skinny dip is great! Kids shouldn't be taught to be ashamed of their bodies and not be allowed to have fun.
Bingo! Vonny! This is what I am speaking of in my diatribe against Puritanism. I am not calling out for a free-for-all public orgy or pornography on demand on the public airwaves. I am suggesting, however, that there is something wrong when we promote the notion that the human body and sexuality is something "filthy", "dirty" or taboo that needs to be hidden away and never referred to.
New characters are never introduced properly, and the characters never seem to have motives for their actions - why is samantha upset with her husband, and replacing him with the pizza boy steve - what is the conflict between the spouses, why does steve not consider the moral implications of his actions, is he a believer in libertinism and the pursuit of pleasure being the chief aim of life, or is there some more mysterious implication to his acts, could he be a religious zealot who wants to procreate for the sake of baring as many children as possible? These things are all unexplored in these movies, and they really ought to expand upon such things. It would make for a far more aesthetically captivating work of art.
There are so many questions which permeate our minds and yet our only answers are loud and unintelligible moans in the wind...
I agree with a number of critics... including a number of feminist art critics, who refuse to define ART and PORNOGRAPHY as separate entities. PORNOGRAPHY... like LANDSCAPE or STILL LIFE is a genre... a subdivision of ART. Unfortunately, the vast majority of PORNOGRAPHIC ART is simply BAD or worse than bad... and this is owed largely to the fact that the subject is so taboo. The Japanese Ukiyo-e print artists thought nothing of making pornographic images... Shunga... illustrating "pillow books" or sex manuals for newlyweds. Many of these are absolutely spectacular works of art. The same can be said of the Hindu sculpture at the Kandariya Mahadeva temple as well as many Greek and Roman examples of erotica. There are any number of big name "art stars" today involved in painting pornographic images... but in most instances these come off as sophomoric... sad attempts by immature artists to garner attention through the transgression of the taboo... not a heart-flet expression of an embrace of sexuality.
Should I hide my feelings for fear of being called promiscuous? I am an adult, not a baby. Even babies love nude posters and they secretly love watching pornographic movies..
Things that are hidden always breed more curiosity. Every child may have the natural curiosity to see something that lies inside our garments.
I totally agree that children need to be thought not to be ashamed of their bodies. How they can love and respect themselves if they are ashamed of their bodies.
Let’s look at the definition of pornography.
Does naked a female or a male body means pornography. I would argue that. A female can be painted totally dressed but still may evoke sexual feelings.Pornography or porn is the portrayal of explicit sexual subject matter for the purposes of sexual arousal and erotic satisfaction.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pornography
However, when I look at contemporary art, women are portrayed with the emphasis on female sensuality. I have a problem with the fragmentation of women. Women are much more than being sensual as it is one of the aspects of being a human.
Let's look at contemporary art.
Andrew Atroshenko
Taras Loboda
Jean-Jacques CAZIN
Sergey Marshennikov
Vidan
Victor Ostrovsky
Talantbek Chekirov
Zhuzhu
ELAINE MURPHY
Douglas Hofmann
Steve Hanks
Pedro Alvarez
Fabian Perez
Colette Falardeau
Egad! Regardless of the content, the majority of those paintings are mediocre at best.
Beware of the man with just one book. -Ovid
The man who doesn't read good books has no advantage over the man who can't read them.- Mark Twain
My Blog: Of Delicious Recoil
http://stlukesguild.tumblr.com/
I was up in Ottawa Thursday to see the Caravaggio exhibit at the National Art Gallery, but on the topic of Lucian Freud, there was the tiny little etching of the dog at the gallery that I think is beautiful in the sort of unflinching detailing of the "ugly" flesh.
Is flesh always necessarily erotic or sexual, because I wouldn't call the dog either of those, perhaps sensual.
"If the national mental illness of the United States is megalomania, that of Canada is paranoid schizophrenia."
- Margaret Atwood
Does naked a female or a male body means pornography. I would argue that. A female can be painted totally dressed but still may evoke sexual feelings.
However, when I look at contemporary art, women are portrayed with the emphasis on female sensuality. I have a problem with the fragmentation of women. Women are much more than being sensual as it is one of the aspects of being a human.
Artists throughout history have stressed the sensuality and sexual attractiveness of women... but this does not mean that these artists assume that women are nothing more than sexual beings to be judged according to their sexual attractiveness. Are we to assume that Monet was oblivious to the growth of the modern city and urban Paris because of his focus upon the landscape, or that Bonnard was unaware of the ravages of war that were tearing through France at the time he was painting bucolic scenes such as this?
Artists paint what obsesses them. They paint what they love... or what they hate. They paint what they CAN. I, for one, love Monet, Bonnard, Turner, Friederich, and Constable... but I have never been much of a landscape painter. I need solid sculptural forms to grasp... and thus I have always been far better in painting figures and still life. I spend far more time painting the human figure than I do still-life for the simple reason that I cannot find much that enthralls me in looking at a table strewn with apples and oranges... yet I can fully appreciate the work of painters such as Van Gogh, Cezanne, and Mondrian who can see so much in so little.
Looking at the portrayal of women in art today, I find that artists perceive far more than merely sexual beings:
-Anne Gale
-Robert Bauer
-Chuck Close
-Alex Katz
-Iain faulkner
-Gregory Calibey
-Harry Holland
-Jeremy Lipking
-Avigdor Arikha
One might even argue that a painting of the nude may convey much more than merely an attempt at sexual arousal. In the instance of Sean Beaver's portrait of his wife (I thought of Vonny with this loving image of the artist's tattooed wife) there is surely more than mere sexual desire being conveyed.
Of course, when one considers the centrality of Eros to human existence and the wealth of music and literature that explores the theme, it is no wonder that the visual artists have spent so much time equally examining the subject... especially as one considers the visual element in sexual attraction and seduction.
Freud's prints are surely special.
Is flesh always necessarily erotic or sexual...
Of course not.
I find the latest picture strangely erotic...
Alex... you are one sick puppy.
Beware of the man with just one book. -Ovid
The man who doesn't read good books has no advantage over the man who can't read them.- Mark Twain
My Blog: Of Delicious Recoil
http://stlukesguild.tumblr.com/
Posting Permissions
Reply With Quote
