Monday 24 November 2014

Does my arse look big on this?


I recently sold this little, African wood sculpture for about 10 times more than I paid for it, and now I miss it. I don't normally like 'ethnic' art, but this bit is rather fetching, don't you think?

The only slightly disturbing thing about it is that - from the waist down - it tended to put me in mind of Kim Kardashian every now and then.

I used to go out with a girl who had similar attributes to this Venus, and I can honestly say that one could have rested a book below her back to read it. I know this for a fact because I once did. It was not 'War and Peace', though, and I did not get much reading done.

The other slightly disturbing thing about it is the missing head, arms and legs.

Although these omissions could be misunderstood as disrespect, I know - as a sculptor - it would be an entirely different thing (I was about to say 'object', but that word is too charged in this context as well) to what it is now, and just wouldn't work as a piece of sculpture as it does.

I know that I have already said how - when assisting a sculptor in making a classical figure of Apollo - we experimented with putting a normal-sized penis on the figure, and this was a disaster which was easily rectified by whittling it down to juvenile proportions, as all the Greek and Roman sculptors did. If we had begun the other way round, this would not have been possible.

The trouble was that it was deeply off-putting to have a normal willy on it, and one's eye was immediately drawn to that region at the expense of the rest of the anatomical carving. This is the sole reason why the classical sculptors gave them diminutive tackle, and this in itself was an extremely valuable lesson to learn.

Cro has already pointed out that it is - somehow - better to have over-size hands and feet on a classical figure, so what you lose in the trouser-department can be made up for in other extremities.

The Victorians liked large backsides, but detested big hands and feet on all but agricultural workers.

If you paint large hands on agricultural workers, remember that they must also be red.

28 comments:

  1. I was once told by an artist that many statues , Michaelangelo's David for example, made the extremities unusually large, as many were placed on the roofline of Cathedrals and other buildings so that they could be seen from the ground. David has a rather large head, hands and feet but his dangly bits are very small…… another artist told me that many sculptors of the 15/16 century didn't have a very good perception of scale.
    I think that your little African wood sculpture has very strange looking breasts ….. either that or mine are odd !!!! XXXX

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    1. Some features were deliberately lengthened to counteract foreshortening - long necks craning forward so that the face is not obscured by the chest, for instance - but style took over in all that, which is how we can date most sculptures to within 30 years in most cases, just with a brief look.

      Re your tits,

      There was a young woman from Devizes
      whose tits were two different sizes.
      One was quite small - really nothing at all,
      and the other was big and won prizes.

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    2. How very dare you !!!! …….. mine are holding up quite well and are of equal size !!!! XXXX

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    3. Holding up my self esteem …… my bazookas are great !!!!!! XXXX

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  2. Love it - it could stand on my table any time. I think young African women often have breasts very like this anyway, although artistic licence can mean anything. What was the book by the way?

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    1. It is the classic exaggeration/celebration of a young African woman's body, yes. People with African ancestry have a head start on the rest of the world in terms of body shape. Broad, straight shoulders in men and wonderfully-shaped backsides in women, eh? I can't remember what the book was, for some reason.

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    2. All the above is a generalisation, of course, but the bodies of white westerners have altered within very short periods of time, just to do with diet. 30 years ago, Japanese people's bodies were completely different as well, and a vast number of Scots were refused service in WW1 because of small, weak bodies caused by bad diet. Now a lot of people aged 18 are well over 6 feet.

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  3. I suppose the most famous Willy Shortening was Lord Reith's command to Eric Gill over his Prospero and Ariel. Ariel was over endowed (according to Reith).

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  4. This sounds like one of Laura's art sessions. Normal bodies are five head tall (or was it six?), but bodies that model clothing are seven heads tall, to make the garment flow attractively. Every profession has such specialized knowledge.

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  5. But could you balance a glass of champagne on her butt?

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  6. Useful item. Be good for uncapping beer bottles. Bet that canny publican in Bath has it now.

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    1. Her actual arse would have been good for that. And cracking nuts.

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  7. "Diminutive Tackle" what a charming term and so poetic. I believe I shall steal it for my next poem. All the little punkettes in my writing classes think it so funny when grandma here refers to anything off color, as if THEY were the first to be naughty. Although I do appreciate the above sculpture very much I am concerned about the scoliosis of her spine and I hope the new owner allows her to rest on her side from time to time.

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    1. That laughter is pure embarrassment, I am afraid to say. I get it too.

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  8. Her breasts look like rocket launchers.

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  9. So if I understand this correctly, men are uncomfortable with sculpted tackle when it's depicted real-sized but women are supposed to be okay with sculpted boobs and butts that are often larger than life, to the point they crowd out heads, arms, and legs? Dare I say men are the real pussies here?

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    1. Now if I were insecure, I would take that comment seriously.

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