Posted: Mar 16, 2010 2:58 pm
Federico wrote:In my effort to try and identify the difference between Art and Pornography (writing about prostitutes in Greek, according to the Oxford Dictionary), again I will show some pictures to allow you to express your opinion.
First of all, to demonstrate that the portrait of an ugly, obese, naked woman can be artistic, here is a painting by the German painter Lucian Freud entitled Benefit Supervisor Sleeping. In its ugliness it is still considered a masterpiece and has fetched $30m at a Christie's auction in New York.
The second example will demonstrate that the portrait of a beautiful woman viewed from an unusual angle is still Art and not Pornography. This is a painting of a beautiful, naked woman, shown from an unusual angle, made by the famous French Artist Gustave Courbet and entitled Origin of the World. Notwithstanding the scabrous nature of the painting, there is nothing pornographic about it, and as you can see, it is reproduced by Wikipedia together with a biography of the Artist.
Now, what about pornographic pictures? Obviously I cannot show you any examples since, by definition and according to the present standards of decency, usually it is the representation of sexual organs actively engaged in copulation or of any other explicit sexual acts. Of course, nowadays distinction is made between "soft" porn (no sexual acts) and "hard" porn (anything goes), but sometimes the difference is subtle and (to paraphrase an American Judge) "When I’ll see Pornography I will recognize it. To further confuse matters, some material is now classified as "erotic" while before was called pornographic, but this is just a sign of the evolution of taste and mores.
Personally. I see no reason porn can't be art, it is a ridiculous view driven by prejudice and a hatred of sex.
Am reminded of a quote of the master wordsmith William Safire when trying to distill some new pornography definitions, he came up with this gem
It's not the teat, it's the tumidity