What makes the nude into a work of art?

<p>If I were starting this thread over, I think that I would drop the word "art" and just ask, "What makes the nude a good or great nude?"</p>

<p>I guess that, if one holds that nude portrayals of the human form are profane (see previous post), then the idea of a "great nude" would have to be considered an oxymoron.</p>

<p>It seems clear to me that our metaphysical frame of reference informs all subsequent judgments, including aesthetic and ethical ones. I will continue to hold that, though they are distinct, aesthetics is somehow tied to ethical judgments in some sense. I am simply not sure what the precise linkage is.</p>

<p>As for metaphysics, I do not think that the post-modernists (in any realm) have escaped it. I do not think that there is any escaping it. Even dismissing metaphysics is a judgment that has deep metaphysical implications.</p>

<p>--Lannie</p>

<p><strong>Lannie - </strong></p>

<p>Do you believe that in looking at nude bodies as subjects of two dimensional art or sculpture we should prone metaphysical as opposed to simple physical and emotional reaction? I don't think so. Much can be gleaned from the sculptures of say a Brancusi or a Rodin or a funeral monument from pre-Christian times, or Egyptialn drawings, that evoke perceptions of the nude bodies of humans and animals (Brancusi in abstract) that our physical senses of perception can equate to something or some gest that is out of the ordinary and therefore qualifiable as art. Metaphysical analysis or thought is arguably not even desirable in many of these cases. Unfortunately most of the examples given in this OP fall quite short of the above-mentioned art. Great nude photography is a largely unrequited desire I think, and that optimistically suggests to me that the opportunities are not fully explored.</p>

<p>More accurate, given your ruminations of last night, would have been titling it "What makes the nude a good or great fetish?"</p>

<blockquote>

<p>"... Fetishes and fossils, then, are two kinds of objects that condense cryptic histories within themselves and that gather their peculiar power by virtue of a prior contact with some originary object. Fetishes and fossils are nodes, or knots, in which historical, cultural, and spiritual forces gather with a particular intensity."<br>

　<br>

"... Atrocious joy and horrible ecstasy have their counterpart in our sense of the sublime. The repugnant penetration of our subjective consciousness by the world's existential "thereness" and the disgusting resistance of our lived bodies to our will may also be experienced as an intensely pleasurable "hereness," as a liberation from the constraints of a conservative selfishness and an embrace of the fullness (rather than the completion) of being."</p>

</blockquote>

<p>[both quotes from Vivian Sobchack.]</p>

<blockquote>

<p>Do you believe that in looking at nude bodies as subjects of two dimensional art or sculpture we should prone metaphysical as opposed to simple physical and emotional reaction? I don't think so. Much can be gleaned from the sculptures of say a Brancusi or a Rodin or a funeral monument from pre-Christian times, or Egyptialn drawings, that evoke perceptions of the nude bodies of humans and animals (Brancusi in abstract) that our physical senses of perception can equate to something or some gest that is out of the ordinary and therefore qualifiable as art.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>Arthur, since metaphysical claims are invulnerable to empirirical refutation, I see no way that these issues can be resolved. Citing any kind of empirical evidence, including historical evidence, simply has no force against metaphysical claims.</p>

<p>To say what you have said is strongly reminiscent of A.J. Ayer's famous claim in <em>Language, Truth, and Logic</em> that "values are nothing more than emotional preferences."</p>

<p>I am not saying that I believe that the nude is profane, simply that I cannot empirically refute such a view, since it is typically based on a theistic metaphysics of some sort, and all metaphysical assumptions are, I believe, invulnerable to empirical refutation. To say that is not to say that they are always or even often plausible.</p>

<p>I find no way around the epistemological impasse that results when persons invoke a metaphysical foundation for a claim. If a person claims that God exists, the claim is invulnerable to empirical refutation. If a person claims that God does <em>not</em> exist, the claim is likewise invulnerable to empirical refutation.</p>

<p>I have no idea what to do in the face of such claims, one way or the other. I do think that we do well to recognize when we are arguing from a logical positivist perspective, however, and Ayer was a positivist. </p>

<p>--Lannie</p>

<p>Julie, you may be right. I have not read Sobchack, but I shall before I try to respond further to your very provocative rejoinder. You do understand the philosophical game, and I can appreciate that what you are offering is a profound challenge. I need to read a bit more before I can unravel the possible implications.</p>

<p>--Lannie</p>

<p><strong>POSTSCRIPT on NUDE$</strong></p>

<p>This just in, perhaps of dubious relevance, perhaps not (given the commercial status of the nude, etc.):</p>

<p>http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2011/08/11/surreal_politik</p>

<p>How much nude photography (and other uses of sexuality, latent and potential) is based on dollars--or rubles?</p>

<p>Perhaps we were barking up the wrong tree. Perhaps we should have followed the money a bit more closely on this topic, since the discussion has proceeded as if all nude photography and sculpture and painting has been taking place in an economic and political vacuum. Perhaps I should have asked:</p>

<p><strong>"Nude Photography: How Much Bang for the Buck? How Much Rumble for the Ruble?"</strong></p>

<p>Sex sells, and we all seem to be in near agreement that the sexual component in the nude cannot be denied. How viable would nude be as an"art form" if nudes have not commanded a good price in the marketplace? I cannot believe that such factors have had no relevance in the evaluation of the nude, in curator's decisions, etc.</p>

<p>At the very least, perhaps the common denominator for porn, pure and simple, has been money. None of this is to say that all nude photography has been about money, of course. There is that genre called "naked girlfriend shots," but I have yet to hear that one discussed as a sub-genre of the artistic nude.</p>

<p>--Lannie</p>

<p>I apologize for the sloppy errors of grammar and spelling above. The timer ran out on corrections, and I always make errors when writing at full speed.</p>

<p>--Lannie</p>

<p><strong>PORN AGAIN CHRISTIANS</strong><br>

<strong> </strong><br>

I vowed when I started this thread that I would emphasize the nude rather than the other extreme, porn or trash. Luca's new thread has taken the "What is art?" question and run with it better than I could have done, and so we are left here with the dregs. So be it. Everything that I stumble on this morning tilts in that direction. The goal henceforth will be to deal with porn without being tainted by it. (I will not be posting any links.)</p>

<p>THIS JUST IN:</p>

<p><a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/14/books/review/house-of-holes-by-nicholson-baker-book-review.html?_r=1&hp">http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/14/books/review/house-of-holes-by-nicholson-baker-book-review.html?_r=1&hp</a></p>

<p>Although the link points to a review of a book rather than to one of a photograph, painting, or sculpture, it yet reminds me once again to what extent the commercial element has come to affect evaluations of what is art--and what is not.</p>

<p><strong>THE FACT IS THAT "THE NUDE" HAS BECOME, ABOVE ALL ELSE, SIMPLY A <em>COMMODITY. </em></strong> The "value" (<em>qua</em> price) of a commodity is set by the marketplace, and it is hard to deny that market appeal based on fashion, taste, and price does not guarantee that the best will float to the top. In fact, we know what tends to float to the top when the market becomes the final arbiter of what is and what is not worthy.</p>

<p>Enter porn. . . . The market seems to tilt in that direction. I have no more to say (in between chores at work) at the moment, but I simply do not think that we can avoid the reality that we swim in a sea of market-based values--and that often means a sea of trash that stretches as far as the eye can see. I find it possible that market-driven valuations affect and perhaps afflict other evaluations as well, whether consciously or sub-consciously.</p>

<p>If the thread be adjudged dead, so be it. If so, let this be its epitaph, unless someone else wants the final word.</p>

<p>--Lannie</p>

<p>Luca's "spin-off" thread is currently dealing with art (in general) as a commodity--not just the nude:</p>

<blockquote>

<p><a name="00ZAze"></a><a href="../photodb/user?user_id=2124547">Luca A. R.</a> <a href="../member-status-icons"><img title="Frequent poster" src="../v3graphics/member-status-icons/1roll.gif" alt="" /></a>, Aug 12, 2011; 01:32 a.m.</p>

</blockquote>

<blockquote>

<p><strong>John MacPherson</strong><br />Museums "buy" it = art?<br />Art collectors "buy" it = art?<br />Art galleries sell it = "art"?<br />Auction houses sell it = "art"?<br />Maybe an easy "acid test". Maybe not very philosophical.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>That conversation can be picked up at the following:</p>

<p><a href="../philosophy-of-photography-forum/00Z9b3">http://www.photo.net/philosophy-of-photography-forum/00Z9b3</a></p>

<p>--Lannie</p>

<blockquote>

<p><strong>PORN AGAIN CHRISTIANS</strong></p>

</blockquote>

<p>I should have asked a question and used a different type of punctuation here.</p>

<p><strong>PORN AGAIN, CHRISTIANS?</strong></p>

<p>No, I am not bashing Christians. I do so denominate myself.</p>

<p>I am yet wondering if porn is less about sex and more about money, as my Dad warned me implicitly a very long time ago.</p>

<p>While I am at it, let me say that, although I am enjoying this conversation with myself, I would like it a lot more if someone else saw fit to jump in.</p>

<p>--Lannie<strong><br /></strong></p>

<p>I really like this question, and it's easy to understand why it arouses so much interest.<br>

A you have said, so much about beauty in general is subjective and<br>

varies from individual to individual, and from one culture to another.<br>

What makes a nude photo art is our own judgment of it; our own subjective perception of it,<br>

filtered by all of our individual life experiences and our core personalities.<br>

Our cultural environment plays a part as well.<br>

I think that as human beings we all have an innate sense of what beauty is ,<br>

in whatever form it comes in, and can easily identify it even if we can't explain it on a<br>

rational level; even if we can't quantify it .<br>

We know beauty when we see it, we know symmetry , balance, and loveliness<br>

when we confront it, but the psychological processes that we engage to come to such valuations<br>

are a mystery.<br>

We can more easily describe what feelings are aroused in us when we view a<br>

nude artistic photo than describe how and why we came to have such feelings.</p>

<p> </p>

In a photograph, or any inanimate object, generally, I don't differentiate between nude and naked. As to art, I tend to agree with LuisG.

Here's something I ran into recently, and it considers the viewer. It's about "Aesthetics".

"In his book 'Art and Experience', Dewey (1934) wants to reclaim the aesthetic from the narrow and elitist confines of "museum art" and place it as a theme of human experience. For Dewey, the aesthetic experience is of central interest. Moreover, rarefied aesthetic experiences are simple an extreme form of what all humans experience in a wide variety of endeavours. Indeed, Dewey seeks, first and foremost, to situate the aesthetic squarely in more common, natural settings:

in order to understand the esthetic in its ultimate and approved forms, one must begin with it in the raw; in the events and scenes that hold the attentive eye and ear of man, arousing his interest and affording him enjoyment as he looks and listens (p5).

..."

"... In Dewey's conception, the aesthetic does not describe the qualities of perceptual artifacts; rather, it characterizes experiences that are satisfactory and consummatory.... While previous philosophers focused on the form of perceptual objects (colour, structure, etc.), Dewey looks for integration with the human being in interaction with the world."

- from "The Best Writing on Mathematics 2010" edited by Mircea Pitici, page 214 in 'Aesthetics'

Here's a picture I like very much. Maybe because it's Kodachrome. For all I know, it's a happy snap.

http://community.ovationtv.com/_Reclining-Nude-by-Window-Color/photo/11427177/16878.html

=> "... reclaim the aesthetic from the narrow and elitist confines of "museum art" and place it as a theme of human experience."

<p>The nude does not even have to be nude:</p>

<p>http://www.photo.net/photo/9264688&size=md</p>

<p>--Lannie</p>