The Rogue Stitch

From a Carib deck with sultry style:

What should fit here is an oblique story about absence.....but I can't remember the short version.

Say, what's really missing from this picture? Perhaps a Corona, a wedge of lime, something tan? A fair odalisque born of the beau monde to please the senses? Fine, alright; I'll leave that imagery for the sans vêtements experience. Speaking of which, I found this great painting of a nude beach:


The confluence of wave, water and body is simply breathtaking. The juxtaposition of light and dark spheres of influence intricately compounds the interplay of pathos and sybaritism. The Rubenesque figure of the beachgoing beauty alludes to the artist's battle with bulimia nervosa as a 20-something, New England liberal arts college co-ed who longed to follow the pretty girls to Cabo for spring break.

What? Don't see it? Look closer. Kinda like those magic eye books. Look through the painting. Cross your eyes. Relax. It's there! The pathos! Chiaroscuro! Chalupa. Chihuahua. Chorizo.

Ok, I'll help:






Right. There it is.

And just think, this 16"x16" acrylic & ink piece can now be yours for only $549.99. That's right, only $549.99. Just make six easy payments of $91.67 before the new year and we'll throw in an oakwood frame for free. Act now while supplies (1) last. Offer limited to one per customer. Void where prohibited (Utah). CA residents add 7.25% sales tax.


So, whose conservative sensibility is offended by such smut on my site? Let me guess...


Hey, it's regular Rogue Stitch reader Johnny Ass-croft, and the original girl-gone-wild, Lady Law.

Well, this, of course, is old news, but J.A.McPrude thought that German sculptor C. Paul Jennewein's Spirit of Justice was just a little too indecent for the hall. So the gov't spent $8k on drapes to cover up what looks to be an artistically-rendered surgically-enhanced breast. Eight grand and it's not even a leather bustier?

I believe poet Clair Braz-Valentine put it best:

While our president calls dangerous men all over the world Evildoers and devils,
While we live in the threat of biological warfare,
Nuclear destruction,
Annihilation,
You are out buying yardage
To save Americans from the appalling,
Alarming,
Abominable aluminum alloy of evil,
That terrible ten foot tin tittie.
You might not be able to find Bin Laden
But you sure as hell found the hooter in the hall of justice.
It's not that we aren't grateful
But while we were begging
The women of Afghanistan to not cover up their faces,
You are begging your staff members to just cover up that nipple,
To save the American people
From that monstrous metal mammary.
How can we ever thank you?

(Actually, thank A.G. Speedy Gonzales for taking the drapes down and bringing us back to the mid-90s ethos of overindulgence.)

According to Justice Department spokesman Shane Hix, the drapes were put up for "aesthetic reasons," as they provided a pleasant background for television cameras.

Aesthetic! What a word. That which concerns the appreciation of good taste; characterized by a heightened sensitivity to beauty. Duh.

Does this not bring us to the difference between naked and nude? That's not a naked personification of Justice--it's a nude, according to Art (i.e., that guy with no arms and no legs hanging on the wall).

This guy, he's naked (and at the South Pole....won't see his boys for days):



Now, Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres' The Source is quite the nude:



It's an allegory; it has to be a nude. You can't have a naked allegory--the misleading qualification would just confuse the artiste as to what would comprise his aureate commentary.

I suppose we could just avoid this semantic dichotomy altogether and follow Ashroft's lead:



It's an allegory of either Daisy Duke or pre-dipshit Britney. I can't tell which.

So to bring this post full circle, the $550 painting is actually a nude figure on a naked beach--because aesthetic consideration has nothing to do with old fat people and European men taking it off when they really shouldn't.

The real question: what's the difference between naked and nekkid?

When you're naked, you have no clothes on. However, when you're nekkid, you have no clothes on and you are up to something.

or

Nekkid is something along the lines of naked with intent to distribute.

Just some food for thought.

This entry was posted on Thursday, November 10, 2005 at 3:58 PM. You can skip to the end and leave a response.