There is no conspiracy.

[daphnep]

Okay, after a fair amount of interest in my "Improving Aphrodite" post from the other day, I made it public, and I'm happy to see so many people as piqued by the injustice to art and anatomy as I was

Comments

[daphnep]

But here's the thing: we change art all the time in reproductions, for GOOD reasons. Take Michelangelo's "David", for example. If one makes an exact-scale smaller model of David, he looks TERRIBLE, because on a smaller scale, one notices what one doesn't see, looking up at him from 13 feet below: his head is enormous in proportion to his body. Michelangelo did that deliberately (and it is part of his "genius") because he knew that people would be looking up at him from 13 feet below.

A table-top model does not have the same proportional needs, and to make a reproduction that looks "right", a really good model-maker will gently and respectfully rescale David's head. I myself change art all the time, even looking directly at the original work, and making (I hope) subtle changes to translate the piece into a new medium--taking green out of a portrait's face to keep the subject from looking "ill" in reproduction, or changing tones to make a color translate into silkscreen inks, for example. ALL of the time, all of the changes I make, it is motivated by wanting the finished product to look good, and to be appealing as an object in a store (removed from the original), and to sell, so that we can produce it over and over again and to sell it over and over again.

I'm just a more conservative "changer" of great art, because I happen to respect it so much, I want my changes to be like good plastic surgery, where you can't even tell it was done. This was just poor model-making, sloppy cosmetic surgery by an unskilled person (who, from what I can tell...and remember, I have the additional context of the full catalog... has studied neither anatomy nor classic art)

[metawidget]

I'd sort of thought along those lines -- the pictures of the reproductions look very much like tabletop miniatures (for Dungeons and Dragons and such) -- and they're designed to look good standing an inch tall, mostly from above. Macro photos of them often look pretty distorted and a weird mix of chunky and emaciated, but they look good in their normal size and place (among dice, papers and snacks).

[daphnep]

*laugh*

Yes, exactly. D&D models are a great example. (We know that no-one is ever going to be carrying this model into the galleries in Denmark and holding the two side-by-side.)

[placeholder]

Fascinating point about David! But the most noticeable thing about the tabletop Venae was that their heads had gotten enormous, actually, as though they were the only parts not shrunk.

Though to be fair, all apart from the cultural shift toward tiny skinny nudes, they don't even seem to be reproductions exactly so much as inspired-by homages. Their postures are different from the originals in a dozen little ways that don't seem to be any kind of functional adaptation, not even for the purpose of skinnifying.

[ernunnos]

So they're bad because the sculptors are just bad? Ok, that I can see, but it raises another question. Why hire bad artists to make your repros when there must be a zillion starving artists could do a better job? Makes me feel bad for them.

[daphnep]

Yeah. Badly done, and also indicative of our silly, brainwashed culture full of people who don't even know how naked women actually look. But not responsible for that culture.

I'm fine with people using the examples as a jumping-off point for talking about self-image in contemporary culture, etc. I just think it's misguided to send off angry emails to that company, as if it's something they came up with all on their own out of malicious intent.

(I keep imagining this poor company: it's probably got all of six staffmembers and a warehouse, and one of the owners has a connection to a guy in China who does plastics. Monday morning, the person who runs the desk is gonna be swamped with angry emails from random internet people who are completely disconnected from their industry. 8000 emails later, their sales are still steady, and all 6 breath a sigh of relief, because the outrage is completely irrelevant to their business.)

[ernunnos]

Heh.

Thanks for bringing this up though. It reminds me that I've been wanting a bust of Epicurus. I look every couple of years, without any luck. But now I see a plaster one is available on eBay! Gonna' have to reward that. And not with an email.

[lds]

Hey, I'm getting the bust of Epicurus tattooed as part of a half-sleeve!

Well, okay, after zophine gets her Kahr, of course.

[agent_mimi]

indicative of our silly, brainwashed culture full of people who don't even know how naked women actually look. But not responsible for that culture.

That's a great point. I agree, but I also think many people feel that changing art to reflect a desire to see women more skinny simply because it's more marketable can be a form of malicious intent. Personally, I'm torn on the matter. It's hard to determine where the line is drawn between desire to make money and actual maliciousness for the sake of extra profit.

Also, to a point you made below, I think that the reason attempts made to show "real women" fail in the marketplace has little to do with what people want. Our culture shows airbrushed, young, white, skinnified, bleached blonded women on every magazine and poster, in every fashion show, in all movies and TV shows with only a very few exceptions. And these exceptions are singled out as being odd and different. They're in shows called "Ugly Betty", they're made fun of on "The Simpsons" and "Family Guy" and Leno, they're interviewed not because of their talent but because they're fat, old, of color or otherwise "unconventional."

We can't completely ignore the power of conformity in media, or deny our culture considers a woman's body public property.

(Here from apocalypsos)