That whole "naked" thing Part 3

Behold the Venus De Milo.


Unquestionably, a great work of art, right?




Now behold another image.

How would you characterize this image? Another work of art? Or is it smut? Porn? A large portion of the general population would simply shit bricks at the sight of this image, even as they praise the Venus De Milo as a great work of art.

But wait a minute. They're both topless women, aren't they? One's an image carved in stone, and the other's a photograph, sure. One's in the Louvre, the other's one of millions floating around the internet. One makes people go, "ooh" and "ahh" and the other makes people go, "Wow, I've got a hard-on" or more likely, "AAAAAHHHH! Naked boobies! Call the police! Call the fire department! Call Homeland Security! Shut it down! Shut it down! Look away! Look away!"

What's the difference between the two?

We say that art is intended to stir the emotions. But what emotions? The photo of the soldiers raising the flag at Iwo Jima can easily be said to provoke a feeling of patriotism and of hope in the future, especially in the face of a bleak present. The image of Da Vinci's "Last Supper" can evoke emotions of piety and grace, for example.

But how about naked people?

I think it's safe to say that the second image is clearly intended to stir emotions, but not of piety or of hope, but of emotions of a more...base nature. That is, the second image's intent is to arouse sexual emotions....desire, even lust.

My first impulse is to ask, "What's wrong with that?" I'm going to answer that question later, but first I want to get back to the Venus De Milo. Why isn't a statue of a naked woman supposed to invoke the same responses as a photo of a naked woman? I mean, we know the expected response to the second image is of sex, sex, sex. Why don't we consider the Venus De Milo's possible emotional response to likewise be sexual in nature? I mean, sure she's armless, but she's naked, too! Plus, she's Venus. The representation of the Goddess of Love. Doesn't that merit an admission that at least part of the response is sexual in nature? Not to hear the "experts" explain it.

I had an "Intro To Art" teacher in college who gave me some mumbo jumbo about how the Venus De Milo is a representation of the perfection that can be represented by the human body and that the representation of that perfection somehow renders the image...sexless. She's not an erotic statute because she's too perfect to be erotic.

What a load of bullshit.

It's just my opinion, and I could be wrong, but I fail to see how something "sexless" can be considered a great work of art. By the same token, I fail to see how an image that evokes sexual responses can be NOT considered a great work of art, but is somehow considered "obscene" and pornographic.

More later.