The Decline of Western Culture in One Photo--Or Not

"The Decline of Western Culture in One Photo"

I post a link to this article because I strongly disagree, and think the issue is important.

While Western art has indeed declined over the past 100 years, I do not think the contrast between “Pink Lady” and “California Venus” shows it.

Nor is the problem as the author sees it, a turning away from beauty. Art has not been, as he claims it has been, about beauty over the ages, changing only in the present day. Ancient Greek sculpture is full of grotesques. Medieval cathedrals are adorned with their gargoyles. Elizabethan drama includes Falstaff along with Prince Hal. Beauty in the trivial sense had its time in the sun briefly on the late Victorian period; that’s about all. If it were just a matter of producing something pleasant to look at, after all, big-eyed kittens on black velvet would probably be the apex of high art.

And I’m afraid Schmid’s “California Venus” strikes me as a bit of a big-eyed kitten. Sure, he did a craftsmanlike job of reproducing the physical features of a beautiful woman. Big deal; you could still do better with a photograph. You don’t need art for that. And look how ridiculously the bit of cloth must contort to cover her privates; it is hard not to laugh at the cliché’d nature of it all. No thought went into it. It might as well have been cast in plastic as a lawn ornament.

“Pink Lady”? Maybe not great art, but at least it’s interesting to look at. Better, in any case, than “California Venus.” A classic grotesque. I especially like the monkey.

Western Art is in decline not because it has lost touch with the superficially beautiful, but because it has lost touch with its religious roots. "California Venus" says nothing in religious terms, beyond, perhaps, "nice hooters!" "Pink Lady" says a number of things: "being human, must I love her too?" "Is a human really nothing more than a monkey?"? "Is life just about physical comfort"? "Is that what I look like to others?"

I could go on; but better to add your own.