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| Casey Parson |
Excerpt From An E-mail |
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i am reading this book by john berger and i wanted to share these thoughts,
even though i'm not sure you would care. i think they touch some of the things
you were talking about in a very broad indirect way. berger is really an art
historian, but he makes these insightful comments on many things. he states
that generally men judge women on looks and women judge men on their presence or
possibility of power. a man sees himself as doing things and a women must see
her own appearance; not in her eyes but as a man would see her. it creates a
kind of schizophrenia or a divided self conception. what is striking about the
development of european and american art is that it is obsessive with ownership.
oil paintings were invented just before the sixteenth century and probably
prompted the high renaissance. what oil painting did was give a greater reality
to what was painted. until this point paintings were more stories and scenes.
now oil paintings were important because they demonstrated the new wealth of a
rising middle class merchant. still lifes were painted with great textures to show, 'hey, this is what i own'. to have a painting done in itself was a sign of wealth. women were a part of the things to be owned. any woman painted at this time, until quite recently, were for the observers amusement. no matter the narration or what action is taking place, a woman almost always is answering to the viewer (male) by giving a frontal nude pose (even if awkward or alot of the times impossible for a real pose) or an obedient modest glance in the viewer's direction. it would be alright to try and show a moment as sexual, but european art takes claim of the sex of women. if you were to look at other sexual images from other cultures the women are in the actions of sex and active in ownership and role. you can take the oil paintings and line them up with images from a porno magazine (im sure you have one laying around) and see an amazing resemblance. this is because they both seek to possess women, except one is considered high art. the camera killed oil painting as a means of possessing things. the camera is far quicker and gives a more reliable notion of having this thing. media and publicity have created an active stream that surrounds us. it also plays with notions of wealth. commercials and advertisements are seen by less prosperous countries as signs of freedoms. they could be seen another way. ads differ from the oil paintings because they are not demonstrating wealth, they are enticing one to get wealth. they create no new ideas, they must use conventional images to hook the average viewer. they use this conventional past to lure a future. what this means for people is that we are always convinced that we need more to be satisfied. after all, as these commercials have established, you are the sum total of what you have. for beer commercials, this means having alot of bare women. for food ads, this means we must have a sparkling clean kitchen and two very active children. for coke commercials, we must have a large group of eclectic friends with dyed hair and attitude. i guess to get back to what you were talking about, i am not sure what to tell you. certainly there are few who have a greater penury than i when it comes to any relationship. you know that i am as innocent and cold as the wind blowing snow in such matters. but bearing this in mind i think you should look at it like this. you should hold someone like a poem. each person has some rhythm in the way they move and tempo of thought. there are variations in the small things they do or say. there is no specific thing that alone fulfills us, but something compelling of the whole of parts. what you were telling me was generalizations. i am sure you have and have had deeper reasons for the people you loved. i think you should shove away all these notions of broad character or why you do things. these things will all fall away when you sing his song, you'll know if you get it wrong.
surely sensible, |
