From: Rod Fleming (rodfleming@sol.co.uk)
Date: 09/14/00-04:43:23 AM Z
----- Original Message -----
From: "Judy Seigel" <jseigel@panix.com>
To: <alt-photo-process-l@skyway.usask.ca>
> name some of the other "thoroughly accepted" practices of history, from,
> say, throwing the Christians to the lions to public autos de fe...
I'll have to stop myself laughing before I can think of something to say to
someone who considers making pictures of naked women- or naked anyone- to be
on a par with "throwing Christians to the lions". Nothing like going over
the top, eh, Judy?
And if you're going to bin what you call "high falutin soft porn" then you
have just chucked out Rubens, Delacroix, Ingres (a master of cheesecake if
there ever was one), Rodin, Manet, Picasso and frankly the bulk of the
tradition of Western Painting and Sculpture since the time of Raphael.
Furthermore, you write off some of the very finest photographers- or was not
Charis Wilson young, lithe and beautiful when Weston photographed her- as
were all his nude models? Who else gets the boot- Jock Sturges, China
Hamilton, Bob Carlos Clark, Craig Morey, Jan Saudek, Irving Penn? (Or for
that matter Lynn Davis or Imogen Cunningham, neither of whom shy from
depicting the young female nude?)
Artists have always been attacked by groups within society who feel
themselves to be threatened by what they do, but to give in to such
pressures is to accept censorship. The fact is that depiction of the nude-
of whatever shape and size, and that includes the forms you take exception
to, including the area of nude eroticism in art- _is_ thoroughly accepted,
has been for centuries, and rightly so. Whereas some might not like it,
nobody ever said that any art had to be liked by everyone.
You said, also:
>Not everyone knows for instance, that until well into the Renaissance the
>female form was considered defective, beauty and perfection being the
>province of the naked male.
Half the truth. While it is quite true that the naked female was not
"officially" used as a model by artists until the time of Raphael, this was
not so much because the female was considered "defective" but because it was
illegal in Florence for the artist to draw from naked female models. This
was because of the prevailing rules of modesty, and because the artists were
seen in the same way as carpenters and other craftsmen- there being no
distinction between the artist and the artisan at that time. The ruling
classes thought it improper that such people should gaze on the naked female
form.
Instead of real women, therefore, artists had to use boys as models for
women. (This must have pleased old Michelangelo greatly, who was always in
trouble with the authorities because of his sexual preferences!) Not until
Raphael, who was the first aristocrat to become a major artist, and who
therefore had the power to challenge these mores, (or more accurately was in
a position to flaunt the rules with impunity because of his noble birth) was
this changed.
There is plenty of evidence that the earlier artists had wished to draw the
female from life, and in fact often did, even though they risked arrest and
worse for doing so! We have to suppose- and there is again evidence to
support this- that the earlier artists would eagerly have used female models
much more widely if they could have- they certainly did with gusto once the
doors had been opened!
An understanding of why it was that the nude male was held in such reverence
as it was in the early Renaissance can only be reached by understanding the
power that Classical (ie Roman) art had over the fashions of the time, and
the conflicting influences of Humanism and religion on the nobility- ie the
patrons of the artists- and, while fascinating, is outwith this forum, I
fear. Suffice to say that the prevailing "official" aesthetic- particularly
in societies which are in no way democratic- (and in this case very much a
male-oriented, elitist aesthetic) does not necessarily reflect the true
values of either the artists or the public.
Rod
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