The Power and the Glory, Part II (see last May for Part I)

don_essedi · May 11, 2010

"Chinatown"

Alright. You've got braggin' rights on the comic in this thread, Fred. I'm envious.

"In any case, I'd say we're farther from purity and beauty in the nude than when we started, so I'm content."

And I'm relieved to not have to bring up St Augustine and concupisence.

Landrum Kelly · May 11, 2010

This is now officially Chinatown, the movie.

</blockquote>

Nah, Fred, it's Photo.net, the novel.

--Lannie

Landrum Kelly · May 11, 2010

And I'm relieved to not have to bring up St Augustine and concupiscence.

</blockquote>

C'mon, Don, at least tell us a bit about forbidden fruit and how sweet it is.

Confess.

--Lannie

Landrum Kelly · May 11, 2010

I find it suspicious that you're only seeking that non-lustful experience with the population within the stated genre of nudes with whom you have the potential of having a lustful attraction.

</blockquote>

Fred: you're missing something. I'm not gay. Why would I want to try to seek a "non-lustful experience" in viewing male nudes? I'm already there. Believe me, if I view male nudes, it is totally non-lustful. I don't have to try to make it non-lustful. With women, some degree of self-control is required. With men, no self-control is required in my case: the temptation is simply not there. Sexual attraction and sexual temptation for women are (for me) facts of life, but they do not have to imply the insistent and intense desire for a woman that I call "lust." Attraction and temptation can quickly escalate into full-blown lust if I do not nip them in the bud, but the mild pleasure of simply viewing a nude portrait (or a woman walking down the street) does not really threaten to escalate so quickly--in most cases.

You won't accept that I am simply operating from a different basic assumption from you about lust and sexuality. You will not be able to establish a reductio ad absurdum on this one. You're only check-mating yourself, not me. You've become imperial, insistent that I accept your assumption, which is also your conclusion. You're question begging, assuming that which you want to prove. I know better than to try to prove the validity of my assumption. It cannot be done, though I can argue for it. You are not arguing for your assumption. You are simply insisting that persons see it your way. That is not philosophical argument. It is more like a bullying tactic. It does not have persuasive power. Your claims fall short.

Your basic assumption is that lust and sexual attraction are the same. I am assuming that one (the first) derives from the other but that they are not identical. No wordplay or having Don as cheerleader is going to make me see your logic, because it isn't there. We diverge at the level of assumptions, not in our logic. Until you can prove to me that sexual attraction and lust are the same, I will stay with my assumption. There is no logical disproof possible in this case. Catching me in a "contradiction" would not do it even if you could. You cannot. It is not about logic in this case. A premise is a premise. Sometimes a premise can be shown to imply absurd or ridiculous conclusions. If you could do that, then you could checkmate me. The problem is that you cannot show that my premise leads to absurd conclusions. It simply leads to conclusions that you cannot accept, that there is an esthetic dimension that is "informed" or even driven by sexuality, and even by sexual attraction, but which is yet not lustful. There is more than the afore-mentioned "drool factor" at stake here. There is the fact that I, for example, can be attracted to any number of women without yet giving in to that desire, or occasional temptation, if such it be. That sublimated attraction might account for my heightened esthetic sensitivity toward the female form over the male form. Whatever the psychological mechanism or the theory as to what it might be, that theory is going to have to square with the facts: though I am potentially amorous with half of humanity, I am not. I have choices to make and I make them. In choosing a wife or a lover, however, I do not suddenly become blind to the charms of the rest of the women on the planet.

If I am wrong in claiming that generalized sexual attraction for the feminine gender is not the same as overt lust toward a particular female, then so be it. I don't think that I am wrong, for one simple reason: I recognize that darned near all women are attractive to me, and yet I do not lust after them, even while I am admiring them. If I find a woman walking across the street to be more interesting to watch than a male doing the same thing, then it does not mean that I am lusting for her. You want this to be an either/or matter, but it is not. Sexual attraction and overt lustful sexual desire differ by degrees--but there is also the fact that sexual attraction is in itself undifferentiated within the feminine gender for me. Lust is not so universal. It has to have a particular "object" of desire. For the porn-seeker that object can indeed be a photo. I am not a porn-seeker and do not look at nudes in order to lust after them. More precisely, I can tell when I am about to cross that line, and I have the choice not to let myself, in the same way that I can choose not to chase a particular skirt. Whether in life or in art, virtue requires some effort, some self-control.

Now, as I said, if I am wrong that the sexual attraction and lust are not identical but are merely related, then so be it. But you have not established that to my satisfaction. You have not even tried.

--Lannie

Landrum Kelly · May 11, 2010

Perhaps a sexual deviant would need to purge his sexual desires in order to achieve purity.

</blockquote>

Perhaps so, Fred, but no one on this thread is recommending the purging of sexual desire, simply controlling it. The rational must prevail over the appetitive. One does not have to buy Plato's theory of the tripartite soul to recognize that reason and instinct can be at war with each other, and reason must decide when to let instinct run free--and when to rein it in.

--Lannie

Norma Desmond · May 11, 2010

Lannie, you got kinda riled up. When and if you come down, we'll talk.

Landrum Kelly · May 11, 2010

Fred, if you see anger, then you are hallucinating. Even so, I do not care for your style of "argumentation" at times.

--Lannie

je ne regrette rien · May 11, 2010

Fred,

If one person likes taking poison, then taking poison is good.

</blockquote>

Is not the right paradoxical paraphrase of my statement.

If someone likes taking poison, then poison is good for them.

</blockquote>

Subjectively, poison might be good as a liberation. It’s not the act of taking poison which could be good, but the poison itself.

This way the metaphor might work for photography (though a bit far-fetched): even if a photo is “poisonous” there are some viewers ready to highly praise it.

And then, writing:

To me, meaning, value, and judgement are shared, not individual. I don't find "good" to be a solipsistic concept.

</blockquote>

You really made my day.

I fully agree.

But honestly I don’t see any confirmation in real-life. If we can identify shared meanings (messages), values and judgements we would be able to distinguish between a photographic piece of art and a piece of crappy photography.

In other words, if there are these shared meanings, values and judgements and if we are able to make them explicit, we would be able to make a clear distinction between art nude and a picture of a naked human being simply made for the purpose of sexual arousal.

And, conversely, distinguish a nude photo viewed to please aesthetic senses from a one viewed for the sole purpose of sexual arousal.

Norma Desmond · May 11, 2010

Luca, for me "I like it" and "It is good" are different. I think often our tastes and our morality influence what and how we see. It is often just taste determining whether we see an art nude or a naked picture created for sexual arousal. Luis has mentioned, and I agree (with qualifications), that people can learn to see just as they learn to read. Most who view photographs do so illiterately. They are certainly entitled to their opinions and tastes, to make judgments about what they do and don't like. But I wouldn't look to them to define genres, categorize photos, or tell me what's good.

Poison is "good for them" if we just consider what they like, want, or think they need. But whether it is "good" (not "good for them") seems like a different matter to me. The poison could have seemed "good for them" to them without being so. It could have been a route chosen unwisely or downright stupidly. They may have neglected to consider the feelings of others who depended on them. We can make the determination that it was not good to take the poison even in the face of recognizing that the taker of the poison thought it was.

If one Being (person) likes a photograph, then one being likes it. It's not necessarily good, by any means.

Norma Desmond · May 11, 2010

Addition: I like "Sex and the City" but I don't think it's very good. I hate to admit publicly to liking some elevator music that I also don't think is very good.

je ne regrette rien · May 11, 2010

Fred,

sorry for mixing the terms up.

Actually I fully agree: out there, there is a lot of "I like" which does not necessarily mean "it's good". I have to explain that my post was not a statement on what I think, but rather a record of what is happening out there.

I keep on reading beautiful (to me) statements:

Luis has mentioned, and I agree (with qualifications), that people can learn to see just as they learn to read. Most who view photographs do so illiterately. They are certainly entitled to their opinions and tastes, to make judgments about what they do and don't like. But I wouldn't look to them to define genres, categorize photos, or tell me what's good.

</blockquote>

and

We can make the determination that it was not good to take the poison even in the face of recognizing that the taker of the poison thought it was.

</blockquote>

However, each time I try to bring forward some objectivity in viewing photos, I'm rebuffed. Recently also by Lannie (on a photo of the week, which was quite controversial), when I tried to convey that a judgement on a photo (but not only) cannot build on "I like it" or "I like it not".

The players in the game: the photographer, the viewer (but of course also the subject - if it's a human being) need to understand that there is a learning path towards viewing and making photography.

Consider Jim Phelps: some of his experimentations are with distortion, selected colouring, scars, etc. I took some time to go through his portfolio and I believe that there is an evolution and study by Jim starting from more classical nudes and then moving over to other attempts.

That's what's important to me: to recognise that there is a development over time, research and attempts.

And this is what puzzles me here: the easiness in accepting practically everything, because "I like it" rather than understanding why "it's good".

luis_g · May 11, 2010

Fred - "If one Being (person) likes a photograph, then one being likes it. It's not necessarily good, by any means."

If I like it because it pleases me personally, it's just me. Everyone can do that, even visual illiterates, and we see it in reviews ad nauseam. Things like [Taken directly, and at random, from PN reviews]:

"This is absolutely gorgeous!"

"beautiful.."

"Fantastic shot!"

"a wonderful image to view"

May as well get a thumbs up, or a 5.5. It will be equally meaningless and uncommunicative. One could even be "famous" on a site like PN and remain clueless as to why. Finding people who are visually fluent and can go beyond the personal is a different matter. Someone well-versed in music can know a piece is significant, excellent and influential, appreciate it, and yet not like it personally -- or as Fred noted, viceversa.

Norma Desmond · May 11, 2010

Luca/Luis, the view that says "art is subjective" or "art is anything you want it to be or anything you make it" or "I like it" is a good foundation for judging art doesn't work for me. The preponderance of art comes from well-executed craft and hard work, in addition to all the more inspiring and elusive, mystique-oriented characteristics we often talk about in these threads. The overly-subjective orientation makes art easy and makes everyone an expert and waters down so much of what art is. Everyone is no more an expert about art or photographs than they are about plumbing or transplanting hearts. Though there's a role for taste, it is often over-emphasized, IMO. It's about learning, skill, and execution as well. There's a lot of significant photographs and art that it's very difficult and/or inappropriate to "like". Do I like Schindler's List, really? Do I like Eddie Adams' photo of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Nguyen.jpg">General Loan executing the Viet Cong Officer</a>? My reaction, as Luis suggests, has little to do with liking or with my subjective determinations.

Still, to be honest, when "lay" people tell me they do or don't like a photo, it gives me somewhat more significant information than when "lay" people tell me the pipes in their basement look good. But it doesn't tell me near as much as a lot of people think it does.

As for the discussion on Tom's <a href="../photo-of-the-week-discussion-forum/00W3ng">photo of the week</a>, liking is a part of the equation but not terribly significant to a critique unless explained with depth. The way I assess others' critiques is to read a bunch of the ones they've made and, if I have access, look at their photos. I can usually tell by what they say and sometimes need the help of how they, themselves, photograph in order to decide whether their critique has any value to me. Everyone has an opinion. Few actually provide a critique.

Lannie's assertion in that discussion that there are no objective criteria in art doesn't work for me as it likely didn't work for you, Luca. No, there won't be universal agreement about a photograph just like there may be different approaches to a serious illness by different doctors, scientific as the realm of medicine may be. But many assessments among experienced photographers and doctors are based on agreed-upon criteria and are at least in the same ballpark, which is telling.

kludge · May 11, 2010

I'm just thinking of something Dave Barry once observed... "The difference between mens' magazines and women's magazines is that men's magazines are filled with pictures of naked women, and women's magazines are filled with pictures of naked women". He has a point.

IMHO, when it comes to the physical body (especially the parts below the neck), women's bodies are generally more elegant and interesting and aesthetically pleasing than men's bodies. This isn't just about sex. It's about shapes and textures - the same sorts of things that make some abstract art more visually appealing than others.

And beyond that, the role of our socially-programmed sexual responses change when viewing men's bodies versus women's bodies. Women have more erogenous zones than men, and men are more averse to/homophobic of male genitals than women are of female genitals in the general case.

So generally, most people prefer pictures of naked women to pictures of naked men from a purely aesthetic standpoint, even straight women and gay men. Nude male photos are far more likely to be overtly tittilating/pornographic than nude female photos. Even in the world of X-rated pornography, men tend to be faceless, anonymous, disembodied penises, while women are seen full frame and full face.

Norma Desmond · May 11, 2010

"women's bodies are generally more elegant and interesting and aesthetically pleasing than men's bodies"

Tell that to all the ancient Greek sculptors.

"women have more erogenous zones than men"

Tell that to most of the guys I've slept with.

"even in the world of X-rated pornography, men tend to be faceless, anonymous, disembodied penises"

Tell that to the people making gay porn.

don_essedi · May 11, 2010

"IMHO, when it comes to the physical body (especially the parts below the neck), women's bodies are generally more elegant and interesting and aesthetically pleasing than men's bodies."

Why, then, for two-thousand years in the West (until perhaps the 18th century) was the female nude rare, and the well-executed one rarer, while the opposite can be said for the male nude?

The 15th century painter Cennini in his Handbook wrote that the female was amorphous and shapeless. Looking at the paintings in a history of western art, this seems to have been a common understanding of artists.

je ne regrette rien · May 11, 2010

Fred,

Lannie's assertion in that discussion that there are no objective criteria in art doesn't work for me as it likely didn't work for you, Luca

</blockquote>

Let's take this is as a starting point to try and find out some positive solutions to find out universally valid aesthetic canons.

It's challenging.

Norma Desmond · May 11, 2010

Luca, I hesitate to carry this too far in what has already been a very wide-ranging and lengthy thread that I assume a lot of folks have already given up on. May I suggest you begin a new thread. Not to put you off completely here, though, I think the best way is to look at actual photos and make substantive assessments rather than to try to talk abstractly about aesthetics in general and universal terms. I think a good starting point for many simple and objective judgments about Tom's photograph, for example, were made early on by Gordon and then built upon by others. To quote Gordon.

"The lack of perspective correction is disturbing. The amount of noise is excessive. The tonality is flat and boring. The window frame is blown out. The focus is soft. The relationship of shadow to highlight is unnatural, as in the worst HDR, without any of the expected benefits of HDR. The composition is fine, albiet predictable."

I'll take a stab at the significance of two of his points. Predictability in the absence of anything new or personal brought to it is often a cliché. Predictability can be relied upon to make a point or show something or it can be an easy crutch. In this case, the predictability did not seem intentional, considered, or well used.

Blown highlights can be an effective expressive photographic tool. Or it can be a mistake. In this case, it seems very likely it was simply a mistake, with no intentional expression behind it.

The "universal" canon that might be gleaned from this has to do with the internal relationships (harmony, dischord, counterpoint, etc.) in the photo. The relationship of the blown highlight to what else is going on in the photo just doesn't seem to work either harmonically or discordantly. It comes across as a mistake.

A further criticism is the lack of depth in the window casement itself. Flatness can be achieved intentionally (as in the painting of Rousseau) and create quite an impression. Here, it's just a photographic misstep that the exposure and perspective take away most of the depth from a photo that is relying so much on composition and structure.

je ne regrette rien · May 11, 2010

I agree.

Nearly 400 posts seems a lot, maybe too much.

I don't feel put off by your suggestion to start a new one. Just have to think a bit about it.

And resume photographing.

L.

kludge · May 11, 2010

Don: Female nudes were rare because you could be burned at the stake for making them, because women's bodies were filthy pits of sin and corruption. Also, look up what "IMHO" means.

Fred: I was speaking of porn where both genders appear, not gay porn. Gay MALE porn, since you also forgot to be specific about gender. And by "erogenous zones", I meant areas that are considered visually taboo, not physically stimulatable (in my experience, the arrangement of physical erogenous zones is highly variable and individual for both genders). Don't be daft, and don't assume I'm being homophobic. Visual depictions of women's nipples are "nudity", but men's nipples are not. Also, look up the word "generally".

Luca: You hit on something far more interesting... is there a universally valid aesthetic of nudity? (this is a subset of the question of whether there are ANY universally valid aesthetics, which is of interest mostly to drunk college students). I asserted that female bodies are generally more visually pleasing than male bodies, and offered some (not terribly firm) support for my assertion that even those not sexually attracted to women often find them more visually appealing in a non-sexual context.

So the first question for my assertion is, is it actually true? Given the sex-tinged nature of Fred's response, I expect at least some of the objections will be grounded in backhanded suggestions of homophobia. Don's critique was much more cogent.

The second question for my assertion is - assuming that women's bodies are actually considered more visually appealing in the general case in our culture with sexual desire removed from the equation - is that a CULTURAL value, or a universal one? Would the same be true of a non-Western culture, or a culture from a different time? In other words, is it a universally valid aesthetic? Don's critique adresses this question, and pretty well. My response to it is that the aesthetic of female nudity in the 15th century was dominated by religious/sexual taboos, much more so than today. But that's just saying that the 15th century response was cultural and today's is not, so my position isn't terribly strong.

On the other hand, the Dave Barry observation that got me going raises an important point. Magazines and marketing aimed at men (with no targeting for sexual preference) are full of nude and semi-nude women, although I'd say that's primarily sexual. But women's magazines and marketing (often with targeting at straight women - see Cosmo) are full of nude and semi-nude women as well, easily outnumbering the nude and semi-nude men who are there presumably for sexual titillation. Since this is fairly obvious, how do we explain it?

I think it's an excellent argument for a cultural aesthetic, but not a very good one for a universal aesthetic.

Here's something interesting about my own experience as a photographer. My preferred subject is dancers, specifically bellydancers. Scantily clad women are my favorite subject and I make no apologies for it. But I very rarely shoot nudes and don't have a lot of interest in it. It's a different matter. And many of these photos that I like the best are not particularly sexual or revealing. They're about form and motion. A couple of other interesting things. First, it's traditional for bellydancers to wear some sort of a loose, form-hiding coverup when not onstage. When I see a dancer offstage in costume, without a coverup, I'm actually slightly offended rather than titillated. She's breaking the cultural rules that I'm accepting as part of the bellydance community. Second, I find I am no longer entranced simply by the beauty and semi-nudity of dancers. No, I CRITIQUE them. It's actually kind of annoying for me, to want to just ogle the hot chick onstage and instead thinking she really needs to work on getting those chicken-arms up and isolating her shimmies better.

One other assertion I'll make... I think that what is artistically attractive and what is sexually attractive in a nude figure are two different things. I find large, hairy, beer-bellied older men far more sexually attractive than thin, lithe, hairless younger men. But visually, it's the other way around. For depiction of a nude male form, it's kind of hard to top Michaelangelo's David. On the other hand, my sexual and aesthetic tastes in women are far more similar, although not terribly in line with mainstream aesthetics - "models" are generally far too skinny and hard-looking.

Just some data points, anyway.

Norma Desmond · May 11, 2010

Dave, you're unfortunately reading accusations of homophobia into my comments. I don't make such accusations often or lightly and certainly don't have any reason to believe you're homophobic and no reason to direct any such accusations toward you. I'm being neither daft nor making assumptions about you. I'm responding genuinely to what you said. I simply thought some of your assertions were unfounded and not true, at least in my experience. As a matter of fact, I was moved when you said "men are more averse to/homophobic of male genitals than women are of female genitals in the general case" and I think men's aversions (especially since it's men who have dictated much regarding cultural taboos, etc.) play a large role in this. I've been trying to convince Lannie how significant his own aversion to looking at male nudes might be in influencing his notion of the divinity of the nude and the supposed purity of the "human" form.

I've heard many people, including many whose opinions I regard rather highly, maintain that there is a more universal (actually a physically-based) sensuality to the "more curvy" lines of women than men. I continue to respect them and have healthy discussions with them though I disagree. The first quote of yours I used above did have me thinking that you thought there was something inherently or physically more aesthetic about the female body, and that's what I was challenging. As you've now made more clear, however, I agree with you and think it's much more culturally based. I think it has more to do with the dominance of the male point of view and straight male desires. That dominance in NO WAY translates to homophobia, which is a completely different matter. Many women's magazines are still dominated by a male sensibility, males traditionally holding positions of power in advertising, photographic decision-making, etc.

Things are changing. There are much more scantily-clad and downright sexy images of men abounding. The underwear section of Macys is a haven for hot and sexualized male imagery, not because package designers think only gay men buy underwear or straight men are suddenly sexually attracted to sexy guys. A lot of it is about the male shoppers wanting to BE those guys. Same with using attractive women to sell to women. It's not just about who the consumer is attracted to, though that is part of it. It's also about who the consumer wants to be (and who the effective advertiser convinces the consumer s/he wants to be).

Dave, I hope we can get past whatever initial misunderstanding there might have been here and continue along these substantive lines. I appreciate your thoughts.

don_essedi · May 11, 2010

"Don: Female nudes were rare because you could be burned at the stake for making them, because women's bodies were filthy pits of sin and corruption."

Nobody was burnt at the stake in 400BC, or at any other time for painting or drawing nudes, male or female. The Vatican is full of nude paintings.

"Also, look up what "IMHO" means."

Right after you look up 'generalization'. It is not the quality of you opinion I care about, but the quality of your facts.

" So generally, most people prefer pictures of naked women to pictures of naked men from a purely aesthetic standpoint..."

That is not an IMHO.

Landrum Kelly · May 11, 2010

I wonder what would happen if the newspapers were to report that Michelle Obama had been a fine art nude model in college--and then the tabloids proceeded to publish the paintings/photos.

Would we call her naked or nude?

In other words, how does social status play into our perception of "nude v. naked"?

--Lannie

Landrum Kelly · May 11, 2010

For that matter, what if the tabloids were to report that Barack himself had been a fine art nude model in college--and then came through with the photos/paintings?

Trying to give equal time here. . . .

--Lannie

Landrum Kelly · May 11, 2010

I have been at work all day today, but I just read briefly over some of the posts. Here are some points made by Luca in an e-mail to me dated March 22 (about the PoW in question). I hope that you don't mind my reprinting it here, Luca, since you have said it so beautifully:

I never said that aesthetics is a clear-cut, linear and objective process. I believe exactly the opposite: a visual experience is in first instance a subjective one, which is related to the way a photo stirs my emotions. And then the entire being of the viewer comes into play, his experience, culture, moral, ethics, etc. Nevertheless I am convinced that the human visual communication has, over the centuries and before the birth of photography, developed objective criteria for aesthetic judgement. But there is a big difference between objectivity and absoluteness, as you probably know. And there is a big difference between objectivity and rationality. We should be aware of these criteria, match them with our gut feeling, and decide whether they are important or not. Masters in visual communication [photographers, painters, and what have you] know these criteria rules if you want and know how to break them, creating masterpieces.

</blockquote>

Thank you, Luca, for the excellent exposition of your view:

--Lannie

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The Power and the Glory, Part II (see last May for Part I)

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