The Hookah Lighter by Jean-Léon Gérôme - eviltoast
  • cleanandsunny@literature.cafe
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    1 month ago

    In a word: orientalism. This art movement was predicated on the exoticism and “othering” of subject matter and the bystanders serve as a proxy for the audience of the art itself.

    • antonim@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      1 month ago

      Orientalism wasn’t an art movement, the picture is in “academic” style.

      IMO your interpretation can be put in a more straightforward/blunt way: the painting is basically pornography built upon cheap cultural stereotypes. (And it really is bizarre that this sort of garbage art gets upvoted to much, simply because it has an air of refinement around itself that excuses its clearly pornographic character.)

      • MajorHavoc@programming.dev
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        1 month ago

        And it really is bizarre that this sort of garbage art gets upvoted to much, simply because it has an air of refinement around itself that excuses its clearly pornographic character.

        Maybe we’re just upvoting it because we enjoy pornography…lol.

        • antonim@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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          1 month ago

          Well, I guess that would be fair, as long as we don’t confuse sexual appeal with artistic value. (Saying this in particular due to a poster guy ITT who said an another poster critical of the painting should “get some culture”.) But the fact that it is posted on an art sublemmy and not some NSFW sublemmy, suggests that the confusion has occurred.

          • MajorHavoc@programming.dev
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            1 month ago

            But the fact that it is posted on an art sublemmy and not some NSFW sublemmy, suggests that the confusion has occurred.

            Lol. Great point.

            Now I find myself contemplating how long one could theoretically go with a daily cross-post that technically fit the rules of both this and at least one NSFW community…I wonder if they would ever run out of eligible art pieces…

      • Dkarma@lemmy.world
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        1 month ago

        This is sad. It’s basically a figure study in 4 parts. Go back and slap whomever you paid for your degree.

        • antonim@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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          1 month ago

          It’s basically a figure study in 4 parts.

          Maybe you should slap your ophthalmologist instead. You’re acting as if the picture does not represent what it literally represents, or as if it does not have the effect that it clearly does have and which it also intended to have. I won’t argue any further against denial of reality.