Pastiche - A hopeless discussion I agree, but your forwarned website certainly defined what maybe emotionless Art is, depending on what your definition of Is is.
Bruce
Really?
I think that the subject matter in the link IS pornographic by any definition..
BUT, if you remove the "content" and appreciate things like line, shape, yada yada... the literal elements of visual representation, you will note that there has been a lot of thought put into balancing the composition, and creating fictitious shapes...
I find it rather comical. Not erotic. Pornographic, yes, sexy? No.
Interesting? Definitely. I'd not sit through several frames of that stuff if it were pictures of walls, flowers, junked cars, etc...
Tattooing?
Ear piercing?
Sewing?
Taking the patient's temperature with a rectal thermometer?
Colonoscopy?
Applying Preparation "H"?
Colonoscopy is where a camera should never be shoved!
BTW Ed, why is it when someone wants to think of puritanical or fundamentalists Utah is brought up. Yeah I agree about the Rodin exhibit being pitiful. In San Francisco I use to go the Museum out by the Presidio and see the rodin's on permeant display there. Think about it. If Utah was against nudity, why are there so many large families? There is one nude photo at BYU. It was taken on a survivaL class outing near Lake Powell back in the spring of 74. It is of a girl with very long blond hair sitting naked in a rain pool on top of a plateau. She is turned away from the camera, but the back shot is a classic Lady Godiva type image. Well you know what, I didn't see that damn photographer after I had hiked for hours to find a seculuded spot to take a bath. I have the distinction of being the only nude shown at BYU. There now take that for being stuffy and puritan like.
You are implying you get to photograph sexy girls aren't you?
You lost me here. I'm not implying anything. I am simply stating my argument to the definition ... it is an oversimplified, sweeping generality, and as such, not very efficient, IMHO.
"I get to photograph sexy girls"? Well - yes ... but "sex" is not my primary, or even secondary, motivation. It goes with the territory... but my primary motivation is to produce work indicative of my fascination and obsession with the incredible beauty in this world as it exists in my "vision".
With very few exceptions, women - ALL women - are beautiful.
Here's an example of an image that in its day was considered borderline pornographic (the Catholic Cardinal who commissioned it kept it hidden behind a velvet curtain in his Roman Palazzo). Today it is considered part of the Canon of western art, much like Michelangelo's David. Yet you can't call it porn, because it has so many other points of reference beyond the sexual suggestion. There are the referents to classical mythology (Cupid, with his wings and bow), the contemporary symbols of musical instruments with their allusion to performance and education as well as seduction...and the masterful, even revolutionary, understanding of light and shadow, and how to capture them on canvas.
Personally I believe that what we call "porn" stimulates one area of your brain that has to do with physical sexual arousal, while what we may call "art" stimulates a part of the brain that has to do with mental arousal.
For some reason I've been thinking of this all day off and on. What makes it porn?
For a while I was thinking that one thing all porn has in common is that it is commercially developed as a tool of arousal.
But, taking a step backwards ... if it informs, entertains, inspires, it's art or (not)porn.
If it arouses, it's porn.
And I don't think there can be a clear line between porn and (not)porn.
Originally Posted by kb244
Adv Reply
