"artistic nude" please, stop showing me tits and telling me it's art.

[Mouse]

ok, this is probably not going to make sense to most of you because it's one of my photo-nerd rants about art related things that bother me but I had to see if anyone agreed.

ok, so I'm looking online at galleries and I keep coming across these peopel doing photography and their pictures are good, great even, but the subject matter is what really irks me.

here's a good example lorelix04's deviantART gallery

ok, these images are really well composed and finished for the most part BUT.. when will people learn that taking pretty pictures of pretty people in sultry poses with vacant stares half naked in the half dark... it's SO FUCKING BORING.

these images mean NOTHING. they convey no feeling. they make no point. they show nothing mentally stimulating.

the "artful nude" needs to die.

if I want soft-core "artistic" whacking material I'll get a suicide girls account (that's a whoel other bag of bullshit worms right there... but that's a whole 'nother rant)

the female body is great and all, but I'm pretty sure we get the point already. chicks are sexy and they need to always look sexy otherwise there's no use for them.

come on baby, stare blanky into my uninterested soul and turn me "eh"

 

[connerR]

I think that the body is art in itself. I don't think some of those have to convey any particular theme. They just look pleasant.

 

[Mouse]

"they just look pleasant"

it's comments like that that make me hate art. and my resitance to those types of half-assed ideas that made my high school art teacher hate my gutts.

and they DO convey a theme. they are very consitantly the same, all of them. the entire gallery is the same shit over and over and over. AND it's also the same shit that's been already done over and over and over.

and yes, the body is art itself. So stop violating the copyright and try something original

 

[genghis braun]

I don't mind seeing "artistic nude" photos of people if something truly artistic and creative has been done to thier body-not just a bunch of tattoos. I saw some work by a photographer who posed tiny toys on people's bodies in really creative and funny ways.

 

[Mouse]

yeah, sometimes someone can do something interesting with the same old trick but I still think, as a rule, the artistic nude needs to be put to bed.

 

[connerR]

What's wrong with something "just looking pleasant"? Must everything have some sort of profound, higher level message to it?

I hate "art", too, though, because it seems too predicated on the placard beneath it.

 

[Mouse]

things that "just look pleasant" are for doctors offices and your grandma's kitchen.

 

[Mouse]

exactly.

and people like to convince themselves Suicide Girls is so edgy and empowering. it's all bullshit.

I will grant nofauxxx.com the honor of being exempt from the jack-ass porn fakers, they actually do compelling work for the sake of naughty pictures.

 

[dirty_rotten_squatter]

O.K I'll agree with you on the suicide girls thing, being that you HAVE to fit a criteria in order to be one and that in my opinion isn't art, nor is it fair. But the "artstic nude" pictues have various art forms in it.. the model, in most of these cases, are not the artist just a prop. It is the photographer who sets the pose who sets the perfect amount of lighting to convey somtimes an emotion or yes to pretty up the picture. You know, there are guy artistic nudes out there too. For the record I sit to pee, I hate it when it splashes up all over the place when I stand.

 

[drun_ken]

my favorite is... Deeper Valley ....i like it better than... Art or Porn - You decide ....deeper valley has some really awsome shots seriously...its not all just like im half naked in front of a broken window over and over again...art or porn is fun cuz ya get both....and i do love my porn....oh yeah i love art to

 

[Gudj]

I am under the impression that having a nude person (especially a female bodied person) as subject matter for a photograph had a similar purpose as having a nude model to draw or paint. Human bodies are uniquely challenging to paint, beautiful, and easy to come across. I figure that using nude models for photography is just an extension of that: super interesting lines and features, a near universal appreciation for the form, and easy to acquire.

That being said, photographers who just use nude female-bodies as subject matter because it's like, tried and true and therefore self-validating, are stupid and not really bringing anything new. Also, even worse are people who use bodies because they think that they will get really cheap appreciation for their 'art' by having a hot girl as a subject. Fuck those people.

So, I guess that I see how nude-models are useful and overall a good idea for practicing fine art skills, however just using them for subject matter because it's a default, or because it might up your horny adolescent fanbase is fucking stupid.

Oh, and I am a male and art-model.

 

[connerR]

things that "just look pleasant" are for doctors offices and your grandma's kitchen.

I don't think so. The museums I've been to are lined with paintings or sculptures that just look good, even if they're cliche or overdone or lacking complexity. The art that I like appeals to me because it looks good (or pleasant or cool or nice or whatever word fits at the time). But maybe that's just me? Perhaps I'm missing the crux of fine art?

Art is like politics, it's different for everyone. In the case of the OP, I could look at well composed artistic nudes for a while and I doubt I'd get bored. But its something that I like to look at.

And for the record, my grandmother has old Asian artwork in her kitchen and a Salvador Dali print in another part of the house.

 

[Gypsybones]

ok I agree with you on "looking at it from an artists perspective" nude art being over done . As a photo guy myself; I tend to steer away from something I other wise love, for the sake of avoiding repetition.

Now the female body has been painted, drawn, photographed, carved, ect ect ect... more than any other one subject in any medium of art in history. Why?
because humans make art, a large majority of them men, (even though both sexes do women) and the most pleasing shape/ line to the human eye is the s curve or just curvs .
for example with one strait line you can make 3 basic shapes with it, strait, bent/ hard line with sharp angels, or a curve.
the curve or s lets the eye follow smoothly and easily with the line, making it seam soft
and beautiful, natural. (because strait lines do not appear in nature there for the most pleasing is the most like nature its self)

so in conclusion; humans make art with human subjects, famous art world historically dominated by men, women opiate of mans eye / female body beautiful and curvy, s curve most ascetically pleasing to eye.

so its no surprise female models/ curvy s shape, get payed more than men blocky square tougher rather than softer.

 

[Gypsybones]

oh and since no one has said anything; that first girl on the DA link, had one fantastic ass.





just putting it out there since so many of yall were thinking that.
Tequila Sunrise. by =lorelix04 on deviantART I mean really?! WOW

 

[Mouse]

ha.. see... it's a total distraction as well. ^^

----------------------------------------------------------

let me phrase my idea a lil differently... even the most politcal and meaningful art can become pointless as well. I'm sure when the person who penned the uncle same "I want you" posters created a massive impact on peoples psyche, but now does it even make you bat an eyelash? No, because you've seen it 80000000000000 times and it's dead.

Same goes for the artistic nude.

I agree with what Gudj said about using the body as a form of study to learn to draw, paint, and as a bases for future creations.. but keeping with the human form as an all consuming subject matter needs to STOP. practice your figure drawing, doodle some boobies and get it outta your system, and MOVE ON. Cars have nice curvy lines as well, but is it ok to only draw and photograph cars for the rest of your days and call that art? nah.

if someone wants to take a sexy portrait for someone, that's cool. everyone wants to have a nice picture taken of them. but to market that as an actual piece of art, puhlease. it's a portrait of a model. That's it.

 

[dirty_rotten_squatter]

Well, that can be said with all pictures..its just a picture of a sunset, flower, fruit bowl, landscape. I think in order to see it as an art, you have to appreciate it as an artist and not "pleasure" There are people out there that can actually look at a nude art photo and not get distracted or aroused, and view it for what it really is, despite what anyone thinks.

 

[Mouse]

I don't think so. The museums I've been to are lined with paintings or sculptures that just look good, even if they're cliche or overdone or lacking complexity.

i can't really agree with taht statment. nude sculputers from ancient greece were made to represent the gods and goddesses, nudes were used in paintings to show different aspects of life, fertility, death, ect. not just as an excuse to make a naked statue or paint a dirt picture, the human form can be used to have prfound meaning and can be made complex and daring and a gallery currartor, if they are worth their weight in shit, knows this. granted, soem galleries are set out only to make money, but I wont include these. I'm refering to legit art institutions like the MOMA or BMA.

 

[Gypsybones]

well really all art has almost been done to death, thats why we get so much crazy shit out of modern abstractors. now you've seen lots of paint splatter pieces *lame but, there was only ever one first paint splattor. like Thomas Hart Benton said "abstract art (painting) is for people that never learned how to drawl."

do you agree with that? or is it something more that your objecting to? I personaly dont do it cause I have more interesting subject matter to tackle, but, it is still art.
some may see smut but others see more.

like the difference between playboy and hustler; they are both smut but one is smut will a little class. (or strip clubs and burlesque.) ether way, semantics.

 

[wartomods]

I kinda like it, ahahah

 

[finn]

Maybe it is all actually neo-dadaism, just with boobs instead of hardware parts! Sorry, used to be an art nerd.