Art, Beauty, and Pornography

Art, Beauty, and Pornography PDF Author: Jon Huer
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 250

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Book Description
When viewing the picture of a beautiful sunset, how many of us realize that, while we admire it as a work of art, we have just taken the very first step toward pornography? And that both the beauty in the sunset and the senses that recognize such beauty are very likely to be anti-art? Making a radical departure from the conventional wisdom on art and beauty, ART, BEAUTY, AND PORNOGRAPHY presents the startling thesis that things of beauty are not only unrelated to art but often responsible for pornography. How is this possible? In this controversial work, Huer argues that beauty pleases the senses, which demand to be pleased with each new stimulation. In a society whose members put a premium on pleasurable things, it is natural that the visual medium occupies a commanding position among forms of cultural expression. In the process of competing to please the human eye, American society (the most graphic and visual civilization to date) concentrates on objects and events that please consumers and, by doing so, sell products. Much of this sense-pleasing business takes place in the name of art. But those senses pleased by what is beautiful are the same senses that receive gratification from the pornographic. Art has no place in this process. Based on these arguments, Huer makes a strong case for re-orienting the purpose of art. Drawing on historical experience in the West, he defines art as a statement about life: pain, wisdom, and happiness embodied in the life process. The artist is a teacher of life, the artwork his philosophy, and the art public the beneficiaries of his teaching. Neither beauty nor sensory pleasure, therefore, has anything to do with art. This important volume is, above all, a critique of contemporary American culture directed most especially to society's confusion about art, beauty, and pornography, and its willingness to allow business to assert dominion over artistic impulse. ART, BEAUTY, AND PORNOGRAPHY is a searing commentary on the follies of our time as well as an inspired defense of high art and the creative spirit.

Art, Beauty, and Pornography

Art, Beauty, and Pornography PDF Author: Jon Huer
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 250

Get Book Here

Book Description
When viewing the picture of a beautiful sunset, how many of us realize that, while we admire it as a work of art, we have just taken the very first step toward pornography? And that both the beauty in the sunset and the senses that recognize such beauty are very likely to be anti-art? Making a radical departure from the conventional wisdom on art and beauty, ART, BEAUTY, AND PORNOGRAPHY presents the startling thesis that things of beauty are not only unrelated to art but often responsible for pornography. How is this possible? In this controversial work, Huer argues that beauty pleases the senses, which demand to be pleased with each new stimulation. In a society whose members put a premium on pleasurable things, it is natural that the visual medium occupies a commanding position among forms of cultural expression. In the process of competing to please the human eye, American society (the most graphic and visual civilization to date) concentrates on objects and events that please consumers and, by doing so, sell products. Much of this sense-pleasing business takes place in the name of art. But those senses pleased by what is beautiful are the same senses that receive gratification from the pornographic. Art has no place in this process. Based on these arguments, Huer makes a strong case for re-orienting the purpose of art. Drawing on historical experience in the West, he defines art as a statement about life: pain, wisdom, and happiness embodied in the life process. The artist is a teacher of life, the artwork his philosophy, and the art public the beneficiaries of his teaching. Neither beauty nor sensory pleasure, therefore, has anything to do with art. This important volume is, above all, a critique of contemporary American culture directed most especially to society's confusion about art, beauty, and pornography, and its willingness to allow business to assert dominion over artistic impulse. ART, BEAUTY, AND PORNOGRAPHY is a searing commentary on the follies of our time as well as an inspired defense of high art and the creative spirit.

Pornographic Art and the Aesthetics of Pornography

Pornographic Art and the Aesthetics of Pornography PDF Author: H. Maes
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 1137367938
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 515

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Book Description
What happens when art and pornography meet? By providing a plurality of disciplinary approaches and theoretical perspectives this essay collection will give the reader a fuller and deeper understanding of the commonalities and frictions between artistic and pornographic representations.

Art and Pornography

Art and Pornography PDF Author: Hans Maes
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN: 9780198744085
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
Art and Pornography presents a series of essays which investigate the artistic status and aesthetic dimension of pornographic pictures, films, and literature, and explores the distinction, if there is any, between pornography and erotic art. Is there any overlap between art and pornography, or are the two mutually exclusive? If they are, why is that? If they are not, how might we characterize pornographic art or artistic pornography, and how might pornographic art be distinguished, if at all, from erotic art? Can there be aesthetic experience of pornography? What are some of the psychological, social, and political consequences of the creation and appreciation of erotic art or artistic pornography? Leading scholars from around the world address these questions, and more, and bring together different aesthetic perspectives and approaches to this widely consumed, increasingly visible, yet aesthetically underexplored cultural domain. The book, the first of its kind in philosophical aesthetics, will contribute to a more accurate and subtle understanding of the many representations that incorporate explicit sexual imagery and themes, in both high art and demotic culture, in Western and non-Western contexts. It is sure to stir debate, and healthy controversy.

Beauty: A Very Short Introduction

Beauty: A Very Short Introduction PDF Author: Roger Scruton
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN: 0199229759
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 209

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Book Description
In a book that is itself beautifully written, renowned philosopher Roger Scruton explores this timeless concept, asking what makes an object--either in art, in nature, or the human form--beautiful.--From publisher description.

The Art of Porn

The Art of Porn PDF Author:
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780972045605
Category : Pornographic films
Languages : en
Pages : 136

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Book Description


Pornographic Art and the Aesthetics of Pornography

Pornographic Art and the Aesthetics of Pornography PDF Author: H. Maes
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 1137367938
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 312

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Book Description
What happens when art and pornography meet? By providing a plurality of disciplinary approaches and theoretical perspectives this essay collection will give the reader a fuller and deeper understanding of the commonalities and frictions between artistic and pornographic representations.

Art and Pornography

Art and Pornography PDF Author: Morse Peckham
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 340

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Book Description


Venus in Exile

Venus in Exile PDF Author: Wendy Steiner
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 9780226772400
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 332

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Book Description
In Venus in Exile renowned cultural critic Wendy Steiner explores the twentieth century's troubled relationship with beauty. Disdained by avant-garde artists, feminists, and activists, beauty and its major symbols of art—the female subject and ornament—became modernist taboos. To this day it is hard to champion beauty in art without sounding aesthetically or politically retrograde. Steiner argues instead that the experience of beauty is a form of communication, a subject-object interchange in which finding someone or something beautiful is at the same time recognizing beauty in oneself. This idea has led artists and writers such as Marlene Dumas, Christopher Bram, and Cindy Sherman to focus on the long-ignored figure of the model, who function in art as both a subject and an object. Steiner concludes Venus in Exile on a decidedly optimistic note, demonstrating that beauty has created a new and intensely pleasurable direction for contemporary artistic practice.

Pornography Or Art?

Pornography Or Art? PDF Author: Poul Gerhard
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Erotic art
Languages : en
Pages : 168

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Book Description


Revealing Art

Revealing Art PDF Author: Matthew Kieran
Publisher: Psychology Press
ISBN: 9780415278546
Category : Aesthetics
Languages : en
Pages : 302

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Book Description
Revealing Art is a stimulating and lucid book about why art is important and the role of the imagination in art, illustrated with colour and black-and-white plates of examples from Michaelangelo to Matisse and from Poussin to Pollock.