I was riding on a dollar van yesterday — you pay a local step van driver to sweep you up and down the streets so you don’t have to walk — and I overheard a conversation between a wrinkled and crusty old man and pock-faced younger boy: “Marry an ugly girl,” the old man said in a heavy Spanish accent, “and you’ll be happy the rest of your life because she’ll be grateful for the attention and content with the ring on her finger.”
Yesterday, in my WordPunk article — Built for Beautiful Failing — I wondered if Art hates or heals. Yesterday, in the New York Times, I received a reply to my query in a story concerning an Art display in a vacant Midtown store: “The Assassination of Hillary Clinton/The Assassination of Barack Obama.”
We are a current culture obsessed by, infected with, and clamoring for — the female breast. Have we always been breast-centric beings? Or is the modern breast in situ only our latest distraction from the real perils of the earthly world?
Let’s turn to art to help inform the context that creates our culture. Early ocher cave paintings and even hieroglyphs made clothing — more than the bare breast — the most distinctive identifier of the human form:
Continue reading → From Ocher to Oil to Pixel: The Female Breast in Antiquity
Recent movies such as 300 and The Hitcher prove there is a written disconnect between aesthetic, the body, and gore as expressed in the higher calling of community welfare and the darkest depths effervescent commodity.
One film proves there is humanity and purpose in bloodshed while the other confirms we lose our hearts in the unnecessary testimony of individual cruelty rioting in rivulets of blood across the screen.
What causes one mind to write such beauty in dismay, while another pens purgatory for profit?
Is this evidence of human progress or of human dismay?
The first image is of “Lucy” the female hominid who lived 3.2 million years ago and her full-scale model was inspired by the structure of her skeletal remains.
The next image is an unnamed model from the Spring/Summer 2006-07 Pasarela Cibeles fashion show in Madrid September 21, 2006 and is created by the flesh and bones of high fashion.
I have resisted posting about this topic because I didn’t want to encourage even more hate on the web, but now that some time has passed and more protections have been set in place, I am prepared to tell you on January 16, 2006 — Martin Luther King, Jr. Day in America — something awful happened here.
What is it about the beast of human nature that requires many to tear down the beautiful and the good?
I believe the answer is it is easier to tear down beautiful things than to build them. Building beauty takes dedication, purpose and the help of others, while tearing down takes the trifling effort of a single person.
I believe it is more convenient to be bad than good. Being good requires caring about things beyond yourself, to volunteer your spirit for possible exploitation and to beg the same commitment from others who may not share your value system. One person with a singular bad intent can tear down empires.
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