Defending artist Paul Jackson’s nude painting removed/ censored from Facebook~
It amazes me how different Americans are from Europeans when it comes to the naked body. All along the streets when my sweet husband surprised me for my fortieth birthday and whisked me to Paris were billboards and posters promoting a beautiful exhibit. A European photographer captured the body through creative photographic vision to resemble flowers, a river, mountains. The exhibit was tastefully provocative, creative, magical, the posters quite interesting, and most definitely a stretch for American standards.
I had photos of the poster that lined the streets. It was at first not recognizable as a body, more like an inverted lotus flower in black and white that ended up being a buttocks.
In America we make such things taboo and in doing so magnify the dirty feel instead of embracing the sheer beauty. The masters of Europe captured beauty in the natural body, making women of any size and shape feel good about the natural tendency for the body to be appreciated for what it does. The significance of the breasts for nurturing a newborn in Europe was so often captured in magnificent light with the subjects being revealed as Goddesses of life.
Because our children are not exposed to the pure beauty of the woman’s body, they find at puberty this snickering, immature relationship with the very thing that brought them into existence.
Even facebook bans nude paintings and drawings on sites. And while I am surely against the posting of a bleach blonde revealing breasts that are guaranteed to show no functional value for bearing children, I appreciate the tastefully painted rendition of a woman with light cast on her body as she is captured by the creator of a painting.
Here is a link to his facebook and blog posts about the painting.
Be WARE! Tasteful nudity alert! If you are under 18 do not open without permission from your parent.
As an artist, I will say, if you are my child...appreciate ART. You are wise enough to know the difference.
