Obsessed with the perfection of nude symmetry, Ingres has spent his life sketching nudes, saying: “It’s only when I face nude models that I have a real sense of the real world. perception.” Ingres’ ideal for naked women is “eternal beauty”. This also used to be the sensual expression of the sculptors Milo and Rodin. The perfect balance of the nude is often beautifully illustrated by some dancers in motion. A real choreographer can be likened to a painting artist whose only difference is the interpretation of the human body in a different medium. Swedish choreographer Mats Eck makes the potential of this interpretation even clearer. In some of the ballets he composes, all the dancers are nude, with dynamic human movements, breathtakingly beautiful.
Nude, in ancient times, symbolized delicacy and perfection. The earliest goddesses were produced in the late Paleolithic period, about 30,000 to 10,000 BC. These exquisite figurines were unearthed in Europe. The body is chaotic and round, bright and abstract. In the tomb murals of the ancient Egyptian dynasty, the priestess is naked. The Egyptian goddess of fertility, Isis, always appears naked. In the tombs of the kings of the Eighteenth Dynasty, the nude Isis on the sarcophagus is very delicate and vivid. On some pharaoh’s tomb murals, a very complete picture of aristocratic life is preserved. The lady shows her full breasts, the maiko is naked, and the female slave holding a plate of food to serve guests is naked. The picture is also deliberately depicted. Their female vagina triangle.
“The human body is pure”. This loss of belief, in complete opposition to the admiration for God’s creation of the human body, in the West, is due to an “original sin” statement of the human mind in Christian dogma. What the body “represents” is nothing more than the temptation of sin, or a reminder of life’s troubles. And so, in the Middle Ages, through religious enforcement, the idea of ​​”original sin” created a curse on one’s own body. The complication of the nude image makes it impossible to enjoy its beauty. This atmosphere has been maintained for more than 1,000 years, which is the so-called Dark Ages. During this period, few artistic achievements, let alone nudes. At the same time, millions of women and girls (historians estimate no less than 5 million) were executed under the pretense of witches in order to completely subjugate female humanity. If women may have their own minds, they should be physically destroyed. It was the will of the era (from the pope to the village priest) to control their lives.
Dark Ages: The Witch Hunt (Hexen jagd)
Nudity has always been a contentious and difficult subject in any public sphere. On the contrary, the instinctual interest of the masses is that powerful fusion of voyeuristic experience, fantasy and tradable reality, always trying to jump on the social norms. In modern times, an interesting case is that the US Supreme Court voted 5 to 4 to overturn a state court’s 7 to 4 decision: “It prohibits strippers from stripping naked.” Note that none of the decisions were supported by a majority of the justices. The obvious fact is that both nudity and pornography are still an emotional issue, and legal attitudes to the dominance of sexuality research make theoretical research seem redundant.
The strict limits on the expression of nudity may be sanctioned by religion, but, for better or worse, modern life has broken through these limits. It has been realized that the minds of the Greeks and Romans were not promiscuous, and were even cleaner than those of modern times. “Clarity about sex does not imply permission to sex”. What is needed is a new kind of accommodation and balance between mass or refined culture, and the banning of erotic reproduction, or the warning, anhedonic moralism is just repression and does not contribute to the balance of human life at all and rich.
An intriguing balance takes place in the historical culture of India, where naked ascetics, Jains and Hindus roam the country, and Jain and Hindu temples are often decorated with erotic sculptures that display erotic poses that would be puzzling to the layman. Before the advent of Islam, traditional Indian clothing did not conceal women’s breasts. However, other forms of public erotica are not allowed, and not so long ago, even romantic kisses in movies. The balance appears to be somewhere between the two extremes. Exaggerated erotic sculptures on one side and very strict asceticism on the other. The latter (also part of traditional Christian practices such as Catholic and Orthodox celibacy) is now also beginning to be seen as eccentric and unnatural. “How can we achieve a real balance?” In today’s Western society, erotica seems to be easier to survive, perhaps because there is more respect for the negative side of erotica. To the contrary, it is now common to hear stories of celibate priests sexually molesting children.
Indian Genital Worship: “Yoni Worship”
An important observation is that the ancients, especially the Greeks and Romans, viewed erotic behavior and erotic images more relaxed than most modern people. The paintings of phalluses and intercourse found in Pompeii, the many brothels in the city, can be said to be an expression of civilization, or decadence, or both. Much of Pompeii’s erotic art was often displayed in the private homes of citizens. Civilizations whose history does not date back to the golden age of Greece is an arc from dawn to decline. And the truth is, the Greeks and Romans discovered the beauty and beauty of the human body and sex. Wouldn’t it be a good thing if the erotic response to its reappearance was like a holy gift full of fun?
In art, however, it is often inappropriate, immoral, or reprehensible to use erotic arousal as an end. But nudity, as a classic art form, has never been seen as a symbol of erotic depravity, even in an era of staunch prohibition. Erotic as a response and as a representation, erotic as a “response” that causes intercourse and pregnancy, is indispensable to the continuation of human life. As a “representation” of eroticism, including the expression of the human body in different media, Western nude art has gone through many “passes”, and has repeatedly made achievements in painting, photography, film and stage performances. They have been identified in Rococo art in the 18th century, in postcards of body photography in the 1920s, nude shots in public films in the 1950s, and even nude stage performances in the 1970s. They may stand alone or as a plot in a longer story. But there is no suspense that, whether or not erotica is allowed, it is still attracted without hesitation. In any case, at least in art, erotica thinks it has its own right.