Sex, art and nature: How do our assumptions affect our photographs?

Do assumptions about sex and nature affect what kind of art people produce or are drawn to? The two

views of nature of which I am aware would be those of Jean-Jaques Rousseau and the Marquis de Sade.

Rousseau believed nature to be good, and society to be corrupt. "Man is born free," he said, "and yet is

everywhere found in chains." Sade believed nature to be amoral, and society to be our only protection

against nature's cruelty.

 

Sex is the natural in man. Is it warm and fuzzy? Or is it an amoral and dangerous force? And what of

culture? Has Western culture corrupted sex through misogynous art and pornography? Or has it correctly

commented on sex as a dark force to be held at bay? Can we start anew, returning to a primordial

innocence now lost by

changing our approach to art? Or is traditional Western art a relection we are fated to plow the earth and

bear children in pain?

 

It is my contention that the photographs people produce are affected by the way they answer these

questions. How do you answer them? Do you think your answers determine how you pursue your

photography? Do they have any bearing on what kinds of photographs you like to look at?

A far more intelligent question is "How do our assumptions NOT affect our photographs?"

 

99% of life is spent finding what we assume we'd find in the first place. As in the adage: "If

you are a hammer, the world looks like a bunch of nails."

Dear kevin, you ask waaaay too many questions.

 

 

"Do assumptions about sex and nature affect what kind of art people produce or are drawn to?"

 

- The first assumption of a good photographer is never assume.

 

"Is it warm and fuzzy?" - Nope, it's hot and wet.

 

"Or is it an amoral and dangerous force?" - Nope.

 

"And what of culture?" - There are many cultures, be specific.

 

"Has Western culture corrupted sex through misogynous art and pornography?" - Depends which side of the coin you earn.

 

"Or has it correctly commented on sex as a dark force to be held at bay?" - Nope.

 

"Can we start anew, returning to a primordial innocence now lost by changing our approach to art? " - Nope.

 

"Or is traditional Western art a relection we are fated to plow the earth and bear children in pain?" - Que?

 

"It is my contention that the photographs people produce are affected by the way they answer these questions." - That is a statement based on your assumption that people want to answer your questions.

 

"How do you answer them?" with 0.5 seconds thought and a keyboard.

 

"Do you think your answers determine how you pursue your photography?" - Nope.

 

"Do they have any bearing on what kinds of photographs you like to look at?" - Nope.

Good point Ellis, writing at the same time it seems.

 

Life is 99% grey with 1% B+W, that's why it looks so nice sometimes. We don't have to make radical assumptions based on the need for answers, since the answers are not the point. The questions and their validity or pertinence are of more import.

 

Kevin, perhaps asking just one of those questions would produce some clear answers, although perhaps not the answers you are looking for.

 

So, to re-iterate here's an answer to your first question.

"How do our assumptions affect our photographs?"

 

The photographs I take are not affected by assumptions, an example is not always assuming 18% grey. Another example is that the photograph is dependant on light, which I cannot assume, within reason.

 

By not assuming you may keep an open mund, and hopefully an open eye.

 

Cheers.

Keeping an open mind is a better idea than keeping an open mund.

Kevin, I do not know if I have any answers to you multitude of questions. But I was a painter long before I traded my brush for the lens. I did ok, sold a few for beer money and had a good time of it. Here is a pair of direct quotes taken verbatim from a small marketing brochure I used while exhibiting in a couple of galleries. They shed no light on your rather thoughtful inquiry, but they might (or might not) give a bit of insight into my philosophy of the nude.

 

 

"It has been said that there are three perfect forms; the hull of a wooden vessel, the body of a fine musical instrument and the nude body of a beautiful woman. I don't paint boats or fiddles."

 

and

 

"On Natural Beauty;

 

The natural beauty of Womankind is a lovely thing indeed. There is a timelessness to the human form and in trying to capture it with pigments on paper I have resisted many of the popular standards and fashionable ideals of the hour. Each culture and era has had certain standards of beauty and of course ours is no exception. However my personal feelings are that certain current fads such as silicone breast implants, surgically enhanced lips, tattooed eyelids and the like are as ridiculous as the saucer shaped lip plugs of the Ubangi or the bound feet of Imperial China. Why is our society encouraging otherwise normal women to become hideously mutilated freaks like Michael Jackson? Not only is it not nice to fool around with Mother Nature but I feel that it is an insult to the God who made us.

 

Perhaps due to many of my formative years being spent outside of the United States, or maybe just because Pauline and I are aging flower children, I am likewise none too fond of the current craze of women removing every follicle of body hair below the eyelashes. To my mind's eye a shaven mons venus is sleazy at best and at worst a pandering to some guy's latent pedophilia. Unlike the tonsils or the appendix it's there for a reason dudes. And I find those silky bits rather aesthetically pleasing thank you very much.

 

Strangely enough however I have a rather broad tolerance for tattooing and piercing although I have had little if any place for them in my artwork to date. Like the henna painted feet of the women from Morocco to India, or the facial scar patterns of certain African peoples I look upon such beautification with a mild (almost anthropological) fascination and curiosity."

 

Just my ramblings; take no notice.

 

Andy

Well, with all due respect Ellis Veneer and Ben Conover, I think this question is clear and very

pertinent. I am going to ride it out and see if there are responses that differ from yours.

<I>The photographs I take are not affected by assumptions</I><P<> Ben, of course they

are affected by an entire mass of assumptions! <P>

How can they not be? The only way the couldn't be is if you have someone blindfold you take

you somewhere and drop you off while walking around blindfolded for awhile randomly

pointing the camera and snapping the shutter and later select and process the shots while

still wearing that blindfold.

Ellis, I assume that I am not a pro photographer. I assume that you are. Just rational assumptions really. I know that my assumptions come into everything I do including photography. HOWEVER, all I was saying is that I try not to assume! I try not to assume everything is grey, etc.

 

Cheers.

You seem to assume that one's outlook on sex and nature must fall into one of two extremes, neither of which fits the great majority of people.

 

One of the more common outlooks on sex is that it is something personal and not a spectator sport, which would seem to make many of the other questions moot points.

As full disclosure, your previous comments here at Photo.net create certain assumptions in my mind about the premises that inspire this posting. Your reputation precedes you. We are on opposing sides of some of these premises and yet share certain, um, affinities.<p> Primarily, the polarity of your options/examples places a sort of AM talk radio imposition on further discussion. There are many other ways to consider these topics. There is the possiblity that nature is morally oblivious, and inclined only to self perpetuation. Permutations of morals and inclination may be primarily attributable to culture and environmental influences rather than hardwired biology or your Star Wars "Force" of irresistible nature. I am inclined (sexually) in certain ways that you are not. Bio-individuality extends to concerns other than eye color and fingerprints.<p>I certainly know men who regard their penises in terms of weaponry rather than as half of a set of connectors or as enablers of enlightenment. I don't believe any of these is always the case or is inescapable. They are all suitable subjects for artful contemplation.<p>I'm glad to address this subject, rather than the usual "I hate this photographer, why is he so successful?" sort of posting... t

Sylvie, that's a great response but you didn't hint at the answers to kev's question(s).

Syl, see you at flikr.

 

Kev, I've been in deep thought the last hour over your idea of sex in the natural man. I agree that we are human above all else. As such we tend to judge, discriminate (positively and negatively), assume, and philosophise. Whether we need, want, or try to do this for each photographic image we make is probably beyond current statistical analysis. I see you are using Rousseau and Sade as opposing examples of the conflict. Yep, I agree with Rousseau rather than Le Marquis.

 

I think you are right about our photographs being a result of who we are, what we see and experience, and what we believe. We must also assume that we are different. I still believe your questions are too many and too broad.

 

However, you did raise my eyebrows since I had assumed that I didn't assume, but according to the Venerable Ellis, I must assume...so with hindsight I assume!

 

Cheers.

My comments are to the point. Starting from a false assumption. Mr. Farrell couches his

dialectic assumption in the language of the French Enlightment to create a straw man

critique e of "Western culture" (as if in human natures in Northern, Southern, Eastern or any

other compass point "cultures" are fundamentally different) . You can't act consciously act

as an artist or indeed as a human without your assumptions shaping your actions & reactions

to stimulus unless extraordinary outside intervention is occurring.

I agree Ellis.

""It is my contention that the photographs people produce are affected by the way they answer these questions." - That is a statement based on your assumption that people want to answer your questions."

 

Or would even ask them.

 

 

--

 

Don E

"I think you are bringing in some anger from previous forum exchanges?" Sylvie

 

I'm unaware of any anger. Irksomeness, perhaps.

 

The questions have a preface: "Sex is the natural in man." I assume, if that can be parsed into meaning, those questions might follow.

 

Setting aside whether 'man' means men or both men and women, it suggests 'man' is otherwise 'unnatural', or maybe except for 'sex', a 'spiritual being'.

 

Dividing the substance like that might have preoccupied the 18th century Philosophes, resulting in such questions and the inevitable answers. It seems an antique approach here in the 21st.

 

--

 

Don E

Hey, In a sense I agree with Don E, the natural man theme is waay dated. Also it raises the question of the un-natural man, which is what? If there is a diagnostic whereby we all fit in or don't fit in then so be it, but in philosophy I don't see the point of naming or defining that diagnostic. Perhaps what Kev is pointing at is the assumption of the diagnostic we do or don't fit into.

 

I'd like to quote Tom here, "It promotes philodoxi over philosophy (love of opinion over love of truth/wisdom)."

 

Cheers

Well, one assumption current in pnet forums is that women have somehow been

held back deliberately because of dated religious views held by white males. The

assumption continues that a relatively recent change in attitudes has liberated women

from having to stay home and have babies and do housework.

 

My contention would be that in tribal societies that live closer to nature, women have to

stay at the camp because getting pregnant they are vulnerable and immobile. Labor is

divided based on the conditions imposed by nature. Men go out to hunt whereas women

stay at the camp and tend the children and gather nuts and berries. As civilization

advances and nature's grasp recedes, women gain equality. Women are able to make their

own way only in more technologically advanced societies. Roads, safe, clean hospitals, hot

and cold running water are the keys to women's equality, not the lifting of imaginary

restrictions once imposed by men. We forget this because we have lived so long under the

protection of civilization we are no longer aware of the threat nature imposes. We forget

that nature's chaos lurks just beyond the veil of civilization and once

held absolute sway over every aspect of life. We take our cushy lives for granted. We begin

to imagine the causes of all things were societal and not natural. We cease to even see

nature. It disappears beyond the walls we have built for our own protection. It is only when

a hurricane or a tornado strikes that we are reminded that we remain vulnerable to

nature's all-powerful force.

 

There is much assumption in the forums that the photographing of nude women by male

photographers is part and parcel of the imagined deliberate holding back of women

throughout history. But this assumption is based on the previous erroneous assumption

that women's work roles in the past were the product of a deliberate attempt at holding

them back, rather than a response to conditions impossible at the time to overcome.

 

It is my hope that by bringing the idea of nature back into the discussion, contributors will

be forced to review their own assumptions about sex roles and start looking for new

causes for the way women are depicted in Western art. Maybe the photographing of

women is not an instrument of oppression employed by men to keep women subservient.

Maybe its causes and origins lie elsewhere. One possibility is that the female nude is a

descendant of primitive fertility art. It is my belief that the female nude is essentially a

religious image dating to earliest civilizations.

Maybe I am missing the main point, or several points - but in my view, sex is only one part of human existance and I'm not overmuch interested in it as a focus of art. Its plastered all over our media, and so seems a bit cliche to me. This coming from a relatively young person who loves sex, and I'm a pretty dominant fella. I am much, much more interested in the intellectual, contemplative side of the coin - and I just don't accept that our primal drive to copulate overrides that of hunger or need of sleep, and I certainly reject that male sexuality is the core of art.

 

That doesn't mean I don't appreciate the work of others that see things in a different way, or express themselves much better than I ever could by connecting to that part of themselves. I just think that hunger, sleep, illness, triumph (sports, etc), and most of all wonder trumps the approach personally.

 

I also think that dissatisfaction with society is a bit of a tired subject, its been done by genius before - many, many times. That doesn't mean I *like* the state of society, from a whole lot of directions, its just that it doesn't feel terribly ground shaking.

I dunno, Kevin, seems like you are arguing against a position that I really haven't seen much of on photo.net. Most of the comments I've seen about nude photography here on photo.net have either been for them or else objected to them for decency reasons of various sorts, and weren't related to women's rights or positions in society. You mention the "one assumption current in pnet forums", yet that is not a position that surfaces a whole lot- not nearly as much as the two positions above, at least.

"Do assumptions about sex and nature affect what kind of art people produce or are drawn to?"

 

No. It's more along the lines of what we've been taught to think. Thinking outside the box of society, don't happen to often, if at all.

 

Pre-computer, jet age, when societies were cloistered, five - seven hundred years ago, you didn't see a mixing of art styles. DaVinci's efforts looked like all the rest, all the while Japanese (Asian) art wasn't messing with Mayan art who wasn't messin with India's art.

 

The point, art is a bit more linear then folks are willing to acknowledge.

 

"Can we start anew, returning to a primordial innocence now lost by changing our approach to art?"

 

I try to do my best to hang with innocence as art and who you choose to align yourself with is a free choice kinda thing.

 

"It is my contention that the photographs people produce are affected by the way they answer these questions. How do you answer them?

 

I never had a need to answer these questions as I didn't know these were questions that needed to be answered.

 

"Do they have any bearing on what kinds of photographs you like to look at?"

 

I prefer "not" to look at other's efforts as to me, what they do, is their business and none of my own. What I do do, is read what they have to say on the matter as what their "think" is, is what's important to me cause creativity comes from within, not from without.

Another example of a common assumption about nature is that it is pretty. We photograph

landscapes and trees because it is thought that the natural world is beautiful. But before

the Renaissence, and particularly before Romanticism, there were no landscapes in

Western art. Nature was not seen or even considered as a suitable subject for a work of

art. This is because nature was viewed with aversion by people who were still more

vulnerable to its horrors than we are today. Italian Renaissance portraits such as the Mona

Lisa were the first paintings to come close to a landscape, and this was five hundred years

ago. Yet people have been producing works of art for one hundred thousand years.

 

I am not so sure we would be capable of seeing the natural

world as beautiful if we were not free to isolate ourselves from it in cars and buildings

whenever we liked. Were we stuck out in the woods, would we still find the natural world

beautiful?

Who is this We? I think you have embraced a false dichotomy. For example not so long ago in beautiful early morning light and mist over the Murray river in Australia I watched a raven eating a live cockatoo anus first. As the cockatoo fluttered through the trees the raven followed it, grabbing beakfuls of flesh. Nature was sickeningly ugly beautiful and efficient all at once. I wonder if that false dichotomy doesn't feed all the way back up to your original question?

The world has moved philosophically a long way past Romanticism; the French revolutions

, The Industrial Revolution, the scientific revolution, American transcendentalism, The

American Civil War, WWI, WWII, the evolution of communism marxist -leninist-trokskyite

thought, Vietnam, Pol Pot, Idi Amin, overpopulation and AIDS put the lie to that. We look

to nature for relief from the ills of our increasingly manufactured and (air, noise, and solid

waste polluted environment.

 

I can think of no philosophy or literature which is more western male chauvinistic and

imperialistic than Romanticism, which, lets face it, was born in the 18th century drawing

rooms populated by leisure addled aristocratic males.