Art, Beauty, and Pornography
Art, Beauty, and Pornography

Author: Jon Huer

Publisher:

Published: 1987

Total Pages: 250

ISBN-13:

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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 and Pornography
Art and Pornography

Author: Hans Maes

Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA

Published: 2015-07-02

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9780198744085

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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

Author: Roger Scruton

Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA

Published: 2011-03-24

Total Pages: 209

ISBN-13: 0199229759

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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.

Let Beauty Speak
Let Beauty Speak

Author: Jimmy Mitchell

Publisher: Ignatius Press

Published: 2023-03-21

Total Pages: 184

ISBN-13: 1642292583

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"From the time of the great Greek philosophers, the good, true, and beautiful were seen as inseparable. Beauty is always good and true. It can be the still, small voice crying in the wilderness, calling us to higher things. Jimmy Mitchell communicates this with an eloquence and elegance which is itself a thing of beauty." — Joseph Pearce, Biographer of Shakespeare, Solzhenitsyn, Tolkien, and Chesterton In an era marked by rampant secularism and endless noise, the ten principles of Let Beauty Speak empower Christians to evangelize the world by bringing beauty to the forefront of their lives and reminding the world what it means to be human. This book is particularly timely given the social unrest, political upheaval, and cultural strife of our times. The world's problems cannot be solved by worldly solutions. Politics, medicine, technology, and other secular fields have their place in society, but the deepest existential questions of the human heart can only be answered by the beauty of holiness found in the lives of the saints. From cave diving in Austria to summer camps in New Zealand, Let Beauty Speak is full of personal stories and rich theology that will inspire you to become a great saint as you apply the book's principles to your own life. Each chapter is organized into beautiful, bite-size sections that make it easy for non-academics to enjoy. Each chapter also concludes with practical tips and recommendations that give you an opportunity to further personalize the principles and transform your day-to-day life. From embracing childlike wonder to integrating prayer, work, and leisure into your everyday life, this is your how-to guide for evangelizing others by first living your humanity well. If not you, then who? If not now, then when? Turn these principles into a way of life, and you'll join the long line of saints whose holiness was the remedy for the isolation, confusion, and meaninglessness of their times.

Revealing Art
Revealing Art

Author: Matthew Kieran

Publisher: Psychology Press

Published: 2005

Total Pages: 292

ISBN-13: 0415278538

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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.

Romanticism and Postromanticism
Romanticism and Postromanticism

Author: Claudia Moscovici

Publisher: Lexington Books

Published: 2007-02-09

Total Pages: 134

ISBN-13: 0739160508

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Claudia Moscovici asserts in Romanticism and Postromanticism that the Romantic heritage, far from being important only in a historical sense, has philosophical relevance and value for contemporary art and culture. With an emphasis on artistic tradition as a continuing source of inspiration and innovation, she touches upon each main branch of philosophy: aesthetics, epistemology, and ethics. The book begins by describing some of the most interesting features of the Romantic movement that still fuel our culture. It then addresses the question: How did an artistic movement whose focus was emotive expression change into a quest for formal experimentation? And finally, Moscovici considers the aesthetic philosophy of postromanticism by thinking through how the Romantic emphasis upon beauty and passion can be combined with the modern and postmodern emphasis on originality and experimentation.

Puzzles about Art
Puzzles about Art

Author: Margaret P. Battin

Publisher: Bedford/St. Martin's

Published: 1989-03-15

Total Pages: 226

ISBN-13: 9780312003074

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The first casebook for use in courses in aesthetics, Puzzles about Art provides more than 180 real and hypothetical cases that illustrate important principles and theories in the philosophy of art. With 25 illustrations as well as concrete examples from legal cases, museum experiences, newspaper articles and various media, including painting, sculpture, photography, music, drama, and film, Puzzles about Art helps students understand specific problems in the visual arts.

Sex Objects
Sex Objects

Author: Jennifer Doyle

Publisher: U of Minnesota Press

Published: 2006

Total Pages: 228

ISBN-13: 9780816645268

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The declaration that a work of art is “about sex” is often announced to the public as a scandal after which there is nothing else to say about the work or the artist-controversy concludes a conversation when instead it should begin a new one. Moving beyond debates about pornography and censorship, Jennifer Doyle shows us that sex in art is as diverse as sex in everyday life: exciting, ordinary, emotional, traumatic, embarrassing, funny, even profoundly boring. Sex Objects examines the reception and frequent misunderstanding of highly sexualized images, words, and performances. In chapters on the “boring parts” of Moby-Dick, the scandals that dogged the painter Thomas Eakins, the role of women in Andy Warhol's Factory films, “bad sex” and Tracey Emin's crudely evocative line drawings, and L.A. artist Vaginal Davis's pornographic parodies of Vanessa Beecroft's performances, Sex Objects challenges simplistic readings of sexualized art and instead investigates what such works can tell us about the nature of desire. In Sex Objects, Doyle offers a creative and original exploration of how and where art and sex connect, arguing that to proclaim a piece of art “about sex” reveals surprisingly little about the work, the artist, or the spectator. Deftly interweaving anecdotal and personal writing with critical, feminist, and queer theory, she reimagines the relationship between sex and art in order to better understand how the two meet-and why it matters. Jennifer Doyle is associate professor of English at the University of California, Riverside. She is coeditor, with Jonathan Flatley and Jos Esteban Muoz, of Pop Out: Queer Warhol.

Pornographic Art and the Aesthetics of Pornography
Pornographic Art and the Aesthetics of Pornography

Author: H. Maes

Publisher: Springer

Published: 2013-11-19

Total Pages: 312

ISBN-13: 1137367938

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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/Porn
Art/Porn

Author: Kelly Dennis

Publisher: Berg

Published: 2009-03

Total Pages: 270

ISBN-13:

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Art/Porn argues the distinctions between erotica and pornography are based on an age-old antithesis between sigh and touch, an antithesis created and maintained for centuries by art criticism. It reveals how the world of art and pornography are much closer than we think.--Back cover.