The whole Kate Winslet thread seems amazingly overwrought, because it's such a _bad_ example of a potential problem. It's a bad example because it combines the _maximum_ of gratuitiousness (it's not at all necessary to select this particular scene to illustrate the movie) with the _minimum_ of indecency. The indecency, if there is any at all, exists only because we know, are told, or understand the context to be erotic, not because of the actual pictorial content.
On the other hand, Wikipedia contains a nice, large, high-resolution image which Mark Twain called
the foulest, the vilest, the obscenest picture the world possesses--Titian's Venus. It isn't that she is naked and stretched out on a bed--no, it is the attitude of one of her arms and hand. If I ventured to describe the attitude, there would be a fine howl--but there the Venus lies, for anybody to gloat over that wants to--and there she has a right to lie, for she is a work of art, and Art has its privileges. I saw young girls stealing furtive glances at her; I saw young men gaze long and absorbedly at her; I saw aged, infirm men hang upon her charms with a pathetic interest. How I should like to describe her--just to see what a holy indignation I could stir up in the world--just to hear the unreflecting average man deliver himself about my grossness and coarseness, and all that.
It is at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Venus_of_Urbino.jpg and, of course, linked in the Titian article. But I advise those who would fain keep their fancy pure not to look at it, but to content themselves with Mark Twain's description.
Nobody seems to be complaining about it.
-- Daniel P. B. Smith, dpbsmith@verizon.net "Elinor Goulding Smith's Great Big Messy Book" is now back in print! Sample chapter at http://world.std.com/~dpbsmith/messy.html Buy it at http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1403314063/
The whole Kate Winslet thread seems amazingly overwrought, because it's such a _bad_ example of a potential problem. It's a bad example because it combines the _maximum_ of gratuitiousness (it's not at all necessary to select this particular scene to illustrate the movie)
It's not at all necessary to select any picture at all. It follows from your reasoning above that all pictures are gratuitous.
with the _minimum_ of indecency. The indecency, if there is any at all, exists only because we know, are told, or understand the context to be erotic, not because of the actual pictorial content.
Why does eroticism imply indecency?
It is at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Venus_of_Urbino.jpg
Nobody seems to be complaining about it.
Well you've started them off for sure, now. Anything else you want to add to the prude shopping list?
Sometimes I think I continue to wade through the fountain of wikien-l solely for these dpbs specials.
I must confess I am dying to know who is rummaging for what in the background of that Titian.
SJ
Sj said:
Sometimes I think I continue to wade through the fountain of wikien-l solely for these dpbs specials.
I must confess I am dying to know who is rummaging for what in the background of that Titian.
I remember wondering about that when I first saw it, in my trusty ole 1950s Britannica. It's basically a composition, so the nude and clothed figures and their different attitudes contrast. And, of course, titillate in a manner that struck Mr Clemens as "a trifle too strong for any place but a public art gallery." Or, mutatis mutandis, a public encyclopedia.