The backwards nude Venus picture I’m offering here is a famous Velasquez, and it represents the goddess of beauty and love while looking in the mirror, in a moment of solitude. ‘Cause mirroring, beloved readers, is essential.

When the new born art of photography made its first steps into the wild world of the 19th century, it soon became clear it was going to change the world forever. The way reality it reflected reality was something no one had never seen: real, strong, precise. That precise that it claimed different aesthetics and a different view upon the morality of arts. A painted nude is a painting, one can recognize it as artwork and place it somewhere faraway from the immediate, from excitement. Because it is a painting and only a painting, and no matter how accurate it would be, it will never look really real. But a piece of nude photography is something different. The person in the picture is right there, just the way she is in real life. Unbelievably similar. You can almost thing of touching her. You can desire her, fall for her, because you can tell she is real. And that, my friends, is a scandal. Or at least it was considered this way in the late 19th – early 20th centuries period. In France a whole bunch of nude photographies were called postcards – although it was pretty obvious they weren’t meant to be sent by mail – and, although, actually because, many men truly appreciated them, they got banned in some more religious, conservative countries of the time, such as the Ottoman Empire.

Later on, however, the works of artists such as E. J. Bellocq, Julian Mandel, A.H. Nicholls or Edward Weston brought into people’s attention the iridescent beauty of human forms, male and female alike, when “indecently” exposed. When there is truth, purity of thought and strength of expression one cannot make up any accusation of pornography. Art is having something to say and showing it indirectly, instead of saying. It is when any primal, basic, unrefined material gets past his usual borders and becomes light.

There is no such a thing as peace in Edvard Munch’s art. The Norwegian painter, well known as a precursor of the Expressionism, succeeded in establishing new aesthetic boundaries in a time when the 19th century was slowly dying, and the 20th was not even born. His passionate lines, his anxiety, his tortured, struggling characters mixed in order to create a deeply symbolical imagery, abstractive of fears, love, obsessions and mysticism alike. The woman, as Munch sees it, is either pure, angelical, high above all materialism, or the very embodiment of sin and decay. As the Madonna painting so strongly reveals us, sensuality and religious matters are forever entangled in artist’s vision, who won’t dissociate between mystical and sexual ecstasy: the beloved one is on love’s highest heights, and that gives her the very transfiguration of sacred suffering. The ultimate intensity is the path to ultimate truth. When lovers are lost in their union, love itself increases their delirious concupiscence, love itself becomes a devouring force, melting their individualities into one, center-absorbed spiral. And when love is gone, there’s nothing else left but despair and despair alone.

When it comes to depicting sexuality and torment, Egon Schiele remains one of my favourite artists ever. His strong, expressive brushstrokes, the power of his drawing and the intensity of his bold, amazing colours produced quite an impression on me when, at some early stage in my life I had made the thrilling discovery of him. All those striking images, considered by many grotesque, even pornographic, constituted themselves, for the teenager I was back then, into a beautiful, tremendous revelation. This was the storm true passions and their clash was supposed to provoke, the fire haunted, restless, thirsty spirits I imagined would ignite all around them, this was the burning road to one’s self – somehow related, at a rather subliminal level, to the tantric yoga’s “Left-Hand Path”: getting to know the ultimate truth trough decadent, extreme practices supposed to integrate spirituality and sex in their reach for pure consciousness. A first impression which has never left me. And who proved itself persistent and influential to my imaginarium, all the way ’till now, I confess.

For more info on the Austrian expressionist artist you can read one of his biographies here and there are also a large number of online galleries hosting his works, such as this quite complete one or this. I wish you a pleasant and enriching experience in this so very controverted – at its time – world.

I was surfing the Internet when I ran into this beautiful pic at alexandrahager.com. Vintage-like, cozy and so full of some one-of-a-kind, incendiary sexuality that almost made me wish for purple tights and winter. Especially winter. Please notice the sensual leisure posture of the character in the left, the “male” pole of the photo, in contrast with the fire-setting girl in tights, whose concentration further arouses image’s inner tension. You can tell there’s a whole story going on and you can feel the intensity of it. Charming picture. And so it seems I just can’t stop my poor head from filling itself with late December fantasies. Smell that cold, fresh air? Too bad it’s only August.