8.11.2010

Vessels -The Mature Body

our most mature Vessel from All Things Are Always Changing














































Dove and Evista advertisements


Thoughts suggested by Love and Desire, 1999 by Willliam A. Ewing:


o If advertising makes "beautiful women" ubiquitous, how do we determine "inner beauty" or "mature beauty" considering humanity's relentless scopophilia [sheer pleasure of looking at beautiful pictures]?


o "Beauty is our escape from the murky flesh-envelope that imprisons us" -- Camille Paglia (p 39)

So according body-loathing Paglia, the aged body becomes shameful and alludes to decay. So what exactly is beauty and how murky is this prison we wear?


o Ewing (p. 46) suggests photographs of nudes can excite, inform, attack or subvert conventions. We can see examples of this, from surrealist (misogynist) photographers onward to Mapplethorpe, Jen Davis, Sally Mann or Jeanne Dunning....

It seems the authority and self-consciousness with which photography speaks in our culture broadens the conventions. Does this happen in any way other than compare and contrast?



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