Aziz Troupe
ENWRI 105
Dr. Durgin
Erotic Beauty
Beauty is not something that can be physical held but, it affects people like poetry. How does an abstract concept, like beauty, influence the way people think and how does one translate those thoughts into actions like art? Where does beauty even come from? Beauty cannot be bought but it can be crafted, as seen with art. One can buy something as beautiful as the Mona Lisa but rather than owning its beauty, they can only be a witness to it. Beauty doesn’t have to explicit but, it also, doesn’t have to be implicit. There is no formula for beauty, but it can be replicated. The tenth-century Indian Temple sculptures, or erotic sculptures located in Chhatarpur, Madhya Pradesh, India, are erotic sculptures that are considered one of the seven wonders of India. Although they are actually carvings in the shape of sculptures, their fame is still the same. In India these carvings are sacred but everywhere else they are just erotic sculptures. Beauties definition and quality changes with people, so the definition of art will also change. These temple sculptures are “great works of art” in the words of Kenneth Clarke, art historian, but does the meaning of beauty change depending on where you are?
Beauty is a stimulation of senses but, what is a quality that stimulates the senses? Is there a mechanism in our eyes that allows us to comprehend beauty, or is it simply a state of mind? In other words, what allows us to recognize this stimulation of our senses and then convert it into thoughts of beauty? Stimulation varies within each person however, some are easily stimulated while others are hard to entertain. Art is among the subjects that can easily expose feelings of stimulation but, with all the different types of art there must be different forms of stimulation or at least different degrees to the feeling. Art is to reflect beauty onto the world and recently, nude art, not to be confused with pornography, has either been labeled as either beauty or explicit. However the confusion can be attributed to not knowing the difference between being naked or nude. John Berger, English art critic/painter/novelist and author of Ways of Seeing, stated, “To be naked is to be oneself to be nude is to be seen naked by others and yet not recognized for oneself”. By Berger’s definition, nakedness is similar to being in the comfort of one’s home and the only company being your thoughts. Not having to masquerade yourself or put on a facade is nakedness while nudeness is the mask that you don for society, it is nakedness concealed to avoid the weight of social pressure. This is a western approach to the topic however, Europe has being doing nude sculptures for centuries but, do they have same ideas and concepts about beauty, nakedness, and nudeness?
Beauty’s abstractness provokes the minds of all species. Humans form their ideas of beauty they want to see reflected in the world that they see. The ideas that are prioritized include visionaries and philosophers. Recently however, ideas of beauty stem from celebrities and the media, who portray it as an object rather than a spark of emotion. One does not simply witness beauty because, seeing true beauty does not raise as many question, thoughts, or ideas as experiencing it. Feeling true beauty is deteriorating in the twenty-first century, and instead a new, ever-evolving, portrayal of beauty is arising. Magazines and internet desensitize beauty which causes it to be seen rather than felt. Indian author Huma Ahmed-Ghosh says it better in his article, “Writing the Nation on the Beauty Queen’s Body: Implications for a Hindu’ Nation” “Tellingly, television is now the site that determines eligibility for citizenship. It is the major avenue for disbursing and negotiating state ideology through its imaging”.(Ahmed-Ghosh) Kenneth Clark, an art historian/author, details art in his book The Nude: A Study in Ideal Form, “Ideal beauty and high finish, two characteristics of later Greek sculpture, do not help to communicate aesthetic vitality” (Clark 183). Clark acknowledges that Greek sculptors try to capture human essence in their sculptures but, also, knows that even with their famous characteristics it simply cannot be done. Not because the sculptors lack skill or technique but, rather because to give life to any work of art requires soul.
Clark is an opposing force to Berger in a way. While Berger relates nakedness with being comfortable, Clark bashes the word when he states “To be naked is to be deprived of our clothes, and the word implies some of the embarrassment most of us feel in that condition. The word nude,’ on the other hand, carries, in educated usage, no uncomfortable overtone. The vague image it projects into the mind is not of a huddled and defenseless body, but of a balanced, prosperous, and confident body: the body re-formed.”(Clark 3). Clark later describes nakedness in Greek sculptures saying, “By his determination to preserve a geometrical point of balance in the center of the figure, the Greek sculptor has made us more than ever conscious how plastically inconvenient is the human body” (Clark 178). Clark is signifying that sculptures cannot obtain the vitality that the sculptures represent. Would Clark’s feelings be replicated if the topic was fashion however? Does he also believe that fashion cannot obtain the vitality that they try to capture? Fashion is art, because it to stimulates the senses but has it become the official industry of beauty through idolization of their representatives, models. Alas, the tenth century carvings lack fashion because they aren’t wearing clothes but, could they to be considered “plastically inconvenient”? Clarke would label them nude but would it be fair to relate them to Greek sculptors even though their definition of beauty and interpretation of the human body is different?
Beauty perpetuates thoughts of nakedness, or if you’re artsy nudeness, because beauty attracts people’s minds. It captures your thoughts and demands your attention. Clark further elaborates on how beauty gravitates around nakedness and nudeness:
The desire to grasp and be united with another human body is so fundamental a part of our nature that our judgment of what is known as “pure form” is inevitably influenced by it; and one of the difficulties of the nude as a subject for art is that these instincts cannot lie hidden, as they do, for example, in our enjoyment of a piece of pottery, thereby gaining the force of sublimation, but are dragged into the foreground, where they risk upsetting the unity of responses from which a work of art derives its independent life. Even so, the amount of erotic content a work of art can hold in solution is very high. The temple sculptures of tenth-century India are an undisguised exaltation of physical desire; yet they are great works of art because their eroticism is part of their whole philosophy. (Clarke 8-9)
According to Clarke the instinct of attraction is pure yet animalistic however, the animalistic concept can be overridden if a subject is nude rather than naked. The question that commonly comes to mind are “how to distinguish between the two”. Honestly, the meaning of the two words is audible, it morphs depending on the context and who uses it. If you’re an art historian like Clarke you would use nude to describe the tenth century Indian sculptures but, if you’re a street critic you would use the world naked. The word is not exclusive though, it can be used by whoever, whenever, and wherever but, it does set a certain tone though. To say that the tenth century sculptures are nude would be to say that their vulgarity contains grace. While them being naked shows there barbaric qualities.
Depending on where you are words have different standards. In the United States beauty is easy to obtain with plastic surgery, make-up, and the right lighting. Our standard of beauty isn’t necessarily low but it isn’t hard to get either. On the other side of the planet, in India, their ideologies regarding beauty are different, just like there fashion or language. The sculptors of the temple carvings weren’t concerned with their sculptures being naked or nude, they were more concentrated on the eroticism which Clarke claims “is a part of their whole philosophy”. To Clarke the tenth century Indians would be considered sculptors who possess the ability to create beautiful nude pieces while to Berger they artists who sculpted people that are naked. I quote Greek philosopher Plato saying, “Beauty lies in the eyes of the beholder” which couldn’t be more true. Each nation holds their own ideas of beauty however each person imagines those ideas differently. So not only does the definition of beauty change depending where you are but, it also varies depending who you are. Who, what, and where you are determine your standards of beauty. Although there is no concrete answer as to why those carvings were sculpted on a temple, what is a fact is that those nude carvings are one of the seven wonders of India. Due to their eroticism, beauty, and location those carvings represent “an undisguised exaltation of physical desire” (Clarke 9). In the United States carving nude and erotic people on the side of a church is not only considered vandalism but, it also is considered disrespecting God. Not only does the meaning of beauty change with every person but, the level of eroticism allowed varies with each location.
Works Cited
Ahmed-Ghosh, Huma. “Writing the Nation on the Beauty Queen’s Body: Implications for a” Hindu” Nation.” Meridians: feminism, race, transnationalism 4.1 (2004): 205-227.
Berger, John. Ways of Seeing. London: British Broadcasting, 1973. Print
Cartwright, Mark. “Greek Sculpture.” Ancient History Encyclopedia. N.p., 20 Jan. 2013. Web.
30 Mar. 2015.
Clark, Kenneth. The Nude: A Study in Ideal Form. Middlesex, Great Britain: Penguin, 1956. Print.
