Popular culture is concerned primarily with body function and is therefore base and ephemeral. Classical culture is concerned with the spirit and divinity and truth and beauty, which is why it endures.
Likewise elegance which does not serve the animal side of our nature, but speaks to the spiritual, ethereal. Fashion modeling, ballet (at least since George Balanchine), and so forth strive to that, not to the sexy.
thank you for this piece. I work on nudes, and have to engage with these issues, and what makes it not be statuesque and yet not porn either, like egon.
There is an interesting intermediate. or dubious case. In late Victorian decorative art, we see, for example, a statue of a very beautiful, naked young woman, and it will be entitled something like "Nymph", or "Dryad". The suspicion lingers that the wealthy patron's interest in the work was not entirely spiritual. Still, the work in those days was done with taste and skill, and at least left open the possibility of a more exalted celebration of female beauty than merely seeking to be titillating.
I've been reading the theories in Advaita philosophy in hinduism for the past few weeks and this post reminded me of the core tenets of that. While you limit your post to differentiating between art and pornography [or the difference between spirituality and consumerist materialism/hedonism by extension of your logic], I'd like to take this a little further and ask you about your view on something that's been troubling me ever since I started reading Advaita.
My understanding is that it's the unique human characteristic of free will which allows us to differentiate between hedonism and spirituality because its only because of free will that we are able to self actualize as per Maslow's hierarchy of needs. Keeping this ability in mind, the only way to live a meaningful life appears to be as an attempt to move away from animalistic pleasures (of money, power or sex) and try to do meaningful work in a spiritual context. Which doesn't have to mean abstention from material being. All the energy must be spent in spiritual upliftment after participating in consumerist materialism for the basic life requirements for survival (which doesn't mean becoming a monk of some sorts but dedicating whatever you do as a service to others as that is the basis of spirituality, so even an army commander or a singer could be doing "spiritual" work - it'd simply depend on the intention with which they are doing it)
When you think about it like that, it sounds great until you realize that "meaningful work" & "bare minimum for survival" are highly subjective and vague terms. Moreover, what they entail would differ from person to person.
For ex - Someone could say that doing sex work or pornography gives them spiritual peace (because of the knowledge that they are bringing sexual satisfaction to many people). So, when we try to regulate public behavior by generalizing morality (for ex: here you are making the claim that hedonism /pornography is immoral or un-spiritual or purely consumerist) - isn't that a challenge to free will (which is the basis of spirituality) ?
But if you don't generalize and give out a basic framework of morality (atleast to a certain degree), public order will never be achieved (which is the basic material requirement for development of cognitive ability).
I would love to read different views on this. Open to discussion with you and other readers, feel free to write to me or comment as a reply to this.
Art is individual exclusion, content is populist inclusionary, porn is either segregation or integration through "oligarchy" (minority rule through committees or cliques) https://archive.ph/lTu1H
Art is refined potent taste (e.g. French desserts, BBQ), content is bland mish-mash of taste (e.g. apple pie, burgers), porn is strong but reductive taste (e.g. pumpkin spice, bacon bits).
Art makes history and defines reality, content self-perpetuates through temporal and mimetic engagement, but porn is long-lasting emanation or simulation of higher art https://archive.ph/QpDW4https://archive.ph/h0GG5
Conjecture: Art is opportunistic and futuristic, content is purely pragmatic and "present", but porn is uniquely idealistic and antiquarian. Porn is a bad copy of art, and content is just diluted porn that is of a different breed from art. https://archive.ph/eiHg5
Great essay, offering much to ponder on what seems to me an inexhaustible subject. Learned a new word - ekphrastic. One interesting miscue: "you would still understand the essence of the story of Cinderella regardless what font it was written in." The word would be printed not written. I've become sensitive to this issue because some articles have recently appeared about the dying out of cursive in our digital age.
Popular culture is concerned primarily with body function and is therefore base and ephemeral. Classical culture is concerned with the spirit and divinity and truth and beauty, which is why it endures.
Lets not forget that the painting - like the goddess - are untouchable, hence why beauty is represented by a goddess here.
Hands down 👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻
Likewise elegance which does not serve the animal side of our nature, but speaks to the spiritual, ethereal. Fashion modeling, ballet (at least since George Balanchine), and so forth strive to that, not to the sexy.
thank you for this piece. I work on nudes, and have to engage with these issues, and what makes it not be statuesque and yet not porn either, like egon.
Thanks. I never understood that at all. I just figured I couldn't tell what was art and what wasn't.
Great essay! And Wow!: “ekphrastic”
There is an interesting intermediate. or dubious case. In late Victorian decorative art, we see, for example, a statue of a very beautiful, naked young woman, and it will be entitled something like "Nymph", or "Dryad". The suspicion lingers that the wealthy patron's interest in the work was not entirely spiritual. Still, the work in those days was done with taste and skill, and at least left open the possibility of a more exalted celebration of female beauty than merely seeking to be titillating.
If a man tells you he has never looked at or bought “adult entertainment”, that man is lying.
I've been reading the theories in Advaita philosophy in hinduism for the past few weeks and this post reminded me of the core tenets of that. While you limit your post to differentiating between art and pornography [or the difference between spirituality and consumerist materialism/hedonism by extension of your logic], I'd like to take this a little further and ask you about your view on something that's been troubling me ever since I started reading Advaita.
My understanding is that it's the unique human characteristic of free will which allows us to differentiate between hedonism and spirituality because its only because of free will that we are able to self actualize as per Maslow's hierarchy of needs. Keeping this ability in mind, the only way to live a meaningful life appears to be as an attempt to move away from animalistic pleasures (of money, power or sex) and try to do meaningful work in a spiritual context. Which doesn't have to mean abstention from material being. All the energy must be spent in spiritual upliftment after participating in consumerist materialism for the basic life requirements for survival (which doesn't mean becoming a monk of some sorts but dedicating whatever you do as a service to others as that is the basis of spirituality, so even an army commander or a singer could be doing "spiritual" work - it'd simply depend on the intention with which they are doing it)
When you think about it like that, it sounds great until you realize that "meaningful work" & "bare minimum for survival" are highly subjective and vague terms. Moreover, what they entail would differ from person to person.
For ex - Someone could say that doing sex work or pornography gives them spiritual peace (because of the knowledge that they are bringing sexual satisfaction to many people). So, when we try to regulate public behavior by generalizing morality (for ex: here you are making the claim that hedonism /pornography is immoral or un-spiritual or purely consumerist) - isn't that a challenge to free will (which is the basis of spirituality) ?
But if you don't generalize and give out a basic framework of morality (atleast to a certain degree), public order will never be achieved (which is the basic material requirement for development of cognitive ability).
I would love to read different views on this. Open to discussion with you and other readers, feel free to write to me or comment as a reply to this.
Let's try this by reading these articles and see how "porn" is the middle ground between art and content https://thomasjbevan.substack.com/p/content-versus-art https://swellandcut.com/2017/08/31/the-difference-between-art-and-society/ https://eggreport.substack.com/p/beauty-porn-and-ai
Art is individual exclusion, content is populist inclusionary, porn is either segregation or integration through "oligarchy" (minority rule through committees or cliques) https://archive.ph/lTu1H
Art is refined potent taste (e.g. French desserts, BBQ), content is bland mish-mash of taste (e.g. apple pie, burgers), porn is strong but reductive taste (e.g. pumpkin spice, bacon bits).
Art makes history and defines reality, content self-perpetuates through temporal and mimetic engagement, but porn is long-lasting emanation or simulation of higher art https://archive.ph/QpDW4 https://archive.ph/h0GG5
Conjecture: Art is opportunistic and futuristic, content is purely pragmatic and "present", but porn is uniquely idealistic and antiquarian. Porn is a bad copy of art, and content is just diluted porn that is of a different breed from art. https://archive.ph/eiHg5
Great essay, offering much to ponder on what seems to me an inexhaustible subject. Learned a new word - ekphrastic. One interesting miscue: "you would still understand the essence of the story of Cinderella regardless what font it was written in." The word would be printed not written. I've become sensitive to this issue because some articles have recently appeared about the dying out of cursive in our digital age.
I'm not sure if I should congratulate you on getting married or be concerned you have entered witness protection...