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Me KITZLEN
Joined:
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04-Oct-2004
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Started On : 13-Mar-2007 at 02:24:06 AM, #Views : 7418
Topic Subject : Sexual organs |
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I was in a discussion yesterday, and learnt that the girls of one community were forbidden to view art that depicted the naked _female_ form. Yet mirrors are fairly standard in most bathrooms . . .
(Mild, I hope) rant over, can I try and push this lively discussion to a different level.
Putting figleaves to one side, sculpture has 'suffered' in many periods and/or at many hands from what I have termed 'sandblasting' (for want of a three-dimensional term for 'airbrushing'). Many classic pieces have beautiful full breasts, but no nipples. The entire breast is just one polished curve.
Examples of pieces with and without nipples (in a pose where they ought to be visible) are easy to find. When it comes to 'down there', though, sandblasting seems to be the most frequent solution -for the female, penises as we all know from the schoolboy anecdotes are common (the 50cm (c.20 inch) figleaf that used to be hung on the cast of Michelangelo's David when Queen Victoria visited the V&A Museum is being exhibited --as a curiosity in its own right-- at London's Barbican this autumn ...).
I have several problems in this area, and wonder if they are shared:
1.
Do nipples and vulval lips and/or pubic hair 'spoil the line' of a sculpture?
I deliberately steal the phrase 'spoil the line' from Maillol (actually "interferes with the profile"), and not least because he was reported to be explaining the absence of arms on many of his pieces.
The headless, armless, footless sculpted torso is not an attempt to ape a Greek or Roman piece that has lost its extremities, it can be (?ought to be) an attempt to find 'the line' (or more accurately the curve) of the human form.
I appreciate some of our work is more 'photorealistic' and that fingers, fingernails, are all part of the work and it would not be the same without them. But if you abstract from the human form and produce a curvaceous solid form, what non-smooth bits does one leave?
It obviously depends on the piece and there is no 'answer', but I would appreciate the reflections of others.
(Also it is interesting to ask oneself if one feels the same -and excuse the hyperbole- about an aputee armless torso, a de-maternalized nippleless one and/or a castrated vulva-less piece.)
2.
One asset of nude sculpture is said to be the timeless, classless nature of the created image.
(Another is the absence of clothing, which too often is actually erotic and not what one is trying to achieve!)
If one avoids the head then the dated effect of passé hairstyles is also avoided. But any representation of the tonsorial fashion at the other end of the body will date -fashions there seem to change with remarkable rapidity.
If 'as God intended' is the standard one ought to be adding back hair -an easy decision in my case. I hate sculpting hair!
3.
I would be fascinated to know the origin of (open vulva) = (erect penis).
The first time I came across this was reading a report on grading Websites content for automated censorship. I presumed it was a politically correct attempt to make men and women equal in the eye of the censor, but it may have more solid origins(?).
Vulvas vary enormously, but many in many quite natural positions are relatively open. Showing that is not porn, unless showing that part of the body is porn.
Anyway, such musings have actually caused a group of artists to come together to organise an exhibition this May. The exhibition will be in parallel with a conference/debate on the subject of the representation of human genital organs (especially female ones) in art.
We have started a web site for this <http://kitzlen.com/nues/> Best wishes to you all, your views are stimulating even if I am not in agreement with all of them,
KITZLEN
(no email <http://kitzlen.com/contact> )
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