Random Art Attack III

October 28, 2005

I took this photo in the Musee d'Orsay, Paris nearly a year ago. My diary entry from that date reads,

"I find the inspiration to write my first Art Journal entry in a small gang of petite enfants, perhaps six or seven years of age, seated in front of a large (1.7 x 2.5 m) Thédore Chassériau painting of a salle où les femmes de Pompéi. The interpretation I get from my audioguide is that the salle combines the atmosphere of a harlem: abandoned bodies, languid poses and the direct gaze of the viewer, all to create a painting of large-scale, heavily-charged eroticism. And here are my young innocent viewers, looking wide-eyed at the naked female forms, and in all earnesty, attempting to draw them under the bold tutelage of their Madame.

Ahhh... les Français!"


I see now that it is I, with my life experience, who interprets the painting as erotic. The children will see none of it, unless they have learned to associate bodies with erotic love early on. What I marvel at here, is that erotic art is taught to children without fear of backlash. To the French, the human form is beautiful and shouldn't be seen as shameful. That is why their galeries are full of nude sculptures & painting, their billboards covered with barely-clothed models, their cinematography full of sex, love and erotic scenes. The French are very sexually open and don't suffer from the same private and public shame/guilt/obsession complex surrounding sex as the English or North Americans suffer from.

Perhaps, if only we were allowed to teach our own art students how to draw the female form...