Category Archives: eroticism

René Magritte @110

René Magritte (1898 – 1967) was a Belgian painter, with Paul Delvaux the best-known representative of Belgian Surrealism.

He became well known for a number of witty images and the use of self-referentiality in such works as The Treachery Of Images (This is not a pipe (Ceci n’est pas une pipe), the best illustration to the concept of the map is not the territory.

His work frequently displays a juxtaposition of ordinary objects in an unusual context, giving new meanings to familiar things (see recontextualization). The representational use of objects as other than what they seem is typified in his painting, The Treachery Of Images (La trahison des images), which shows a pipe that looks as though it is a model for a tobacco store advertisement. Magritte painted below the pipe, This is not a pipe (Ceci n’est pas une pipe), which seems a contradiction, but is actually true: the painting is not a pipe, it is an image of a pipe. (In his book, This Is Not a Pipe, French critic Michel Foucault discusses the painting and its paradox.) Mention of This Is Not a Novel by David Markson is also in place here.

All this is conveniently known and one should also point to Magritte predilection for the bowler hat.

Most of the work of Magritte strikes as profoundly unerotic, cerebral and situated to the wrong side (left brain) of the twentieth century art faultline, but appearances deceive.

Attempting the Impossible (1928) [1]

Les Amants / The Lovers. (1928) [2]

Le Viol (1934) – René Magritte [3][4]

Collective Invention (1934) [5]

Les Bijoux Indiscrets (1963) [6]

Many of these works hint at tainted and thwarted love and eroticism, skewed by a desire for paraphilic love and expression. There are hints of pygmalionism, attraction to independent body parts, rape and sensory deprivation. Unlike his contemporary André Masson, Magritte never takes on these subjects head-on, fodder for psychosexual interpretations which would conclude: repressed sexuality.

Alain Robbe-Grillet‘s La Belle captive.

New to me in the 2000s was Alain Robbe-Grillet’s cinematic take on the sophistry of Magritte. Grillet managed to eroticize the unspoken eroticism of Magritte in his film La Belle captive.

In 1983 Grillet releases his feature film La Belle captive in a production by Anatole Dauman‘s Argos Films.

The film is named after a painting by René Magritte, and is also the name of a 1975 photonovel of La Belle Captive: A Novel written by Robbe-Grillet and illustrated with Magritte’s paintings. To complicate things still further “La Belle Captive” is an extended series of over a dozen paintings, worked on during four decades, with its primary subject the easel, suggesting art and reality held captive. In the case of the film, Grillet chose to interpret the title of the film literally by playing on the trope of the damsel in distress.

To be disovered remains the 1955 documentary film Magritte by Belgian filmmaker and cultural anthropologist Luc de Heusch.

Introducing “At Her Discretion”

Introducing “At Her Discretion.”

pulp fiction cover

Life Magazine photo of unidentified theatre advertising Pornography in Denmark

http://atherdiscretion.tumblr.com/

At her discretion is an Anglophone visual culture blog, self-described as “The vintage, the modern, the strange and erotic. It’s sometimes NSFW.” It’s very prolific and highly entertaining.

Some notable blogs include BibliOdyssey, A Journey Round My Skull, Femme Femme Femme, Hugo Strikes Back, ponyXpress, John Coulthart‘s Feuilleton and Adventures in the Print Trade.

Il Giornale Nuovo was one of the most renowned but has been defunct since 2007.

Tip of the hat to Paul Rumsey.

Gratuitous nudity #14

My previous post provides me with an opportunity to provide you with a new instance of gratuitous nudity: a beautiful still from Africa Addio.

Africa Addio (1966) – Gualtiero Jacopetti, Franco Prosperi
Image sourced here. [Dec 2005]

Africa Addio is a 1966 Italian documentary film about the decolonization in Africa. It was shot over a period of three years, by Gualtiero Jacopetti and Franco Prosperi, two Italian filmmakers who had gained fame a few years earlier (with co-director Paolo Cavara) as the directors of Mondo Cane in 1962. The image was taken from the Captain Trash[1] site somewhere in 2005. This site is a treasure trove of “trash culture“. See its Google gallery here. See for example this image, of which I do not know the provenance.

Mitch Mitchell (1947 – 2008)

RIP Mitch Mitchell

[Youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jmFhgpL_rQY]

“Voodoo Child (Slight Return)“

John “Mitch” Mitchell (July 9, 1947 November 12, 2008) was an English drummer, best-known for his membership in The Jimi Hendrix Experience. Mitchell was known for his work on such songs as “Manic Depression” (a 3/4 rock waltz that finds Mitch playing a driving afro-cuban inspired beat), “Voodoo Child (Slight Return)“[1], “Fire” and “Voodoo Chile” (a deep blues groove with subtle hi-hat). Mitchell came from a jazz background and like many of his drummer contemporaries was strongly influenced by the work of Elvin Jones, Max Roach, and Joe Morello.

Mitchell pioneered a style of drumming which would later become known as jazz fusion. Alongside Hendrix’s revolutionary guitar work and songwriting, Mitchell’s playing helped redefine rock music drumming.

Electric Ladyland cover, photo by David Montgomery

The death of Mitch gives me the opportunity to discuss the photo on Electric Ladyland, one of my alltime favourite record covers. The photo depicts nineteen nude women lounging in front of a black background.

“The cover was put together by Chris Stamp and Track Records art director David King while Hendrix was in the US. Stamp sent King and photographer David Montgomery down to the Speakeasy to round up some girls, with the brief to make them look like “real people. At £5 a head (or £10 with their knickers off) this sounds like authentic Stamp.” —33⅓ on Electric Ladyland by John Perry [2].

One of the 19 girls, Reine Sutcliffe, told the music paper Melody Maker:

“It makes us look like a load of old tarts. It’s rotten. Everyone looked great but the picture makes us look old and tired. We were trying to look too sexy, but it didn’t work out.”

British visual culture connoisseur Stephen Bayley adds:

“The concept was fully in accordance with the spirit of the Sixties: at the same time Harry Peccinotti and David Hillman had done a memorable photo feature for Nova magazine” –The Independent on Sunday, July 16, 2006 by Stephen Bayley [3]

I’m afraid I can’t agree with miss Sutcliffe on this matter. I find the realism in this photo not enticing but more than fascinating nonetheless, though I also admit I empathize about denying her five minutes of glamourous fame.

L’erotismo by Francesco Alberoni (1986)

Looks like Japanese translation of L’erotismo

I started reading Francesco Alberoni‘s L’erotismo (“Eroticism”, 1986). I discovered Alberoni through de Botton when I read Essays in Love, Alberoni’s predecessor is a cult item.

The main discourse of the book is difference between female and male feelings for eroticism along the continuity/discontinuity axis, an approach I believe first explored by Georges Bataille, although Alberoni invokes Pascal Bruckner and Alain Finkielkraut (Le nouveau désordre amoureux).

It also mentions a 1894 funny study by Francis Galton on skin sensitivity in women and men: The relative sensitivity of men and women at the nape of the neck.

The book is well-informed and references Nina Baym (mother of Nancy Baym) and her work on women’s fiction and female reading and writing practice (and the mishistoriography thereof). It equates female pornography with the novels of Barbara Cartland and her equivalents in Europe (Liala in Italy and Delly in France).

Also mentioned are Helen Hazel, the author of Endless Rapture: Rape, Romance and the Female Imagination[1], a work on the rape fantasy (bodice rippers), and Opus Pistorum by Henry Miller (but actually ghost-written by female writer and entrepreneur Caresse Crosby.

And I’ve only read 10 pages.

Dare I say one of the more interesting works on eroticism to have crossed my hands?

P. S. I’m reading a Dutch translation, I’m not sure if L’erotismo has been translated into English.

Introducing Henri/y Gerbault

Introducing Henri Gerbault

I’m just a jealous guy

Henry Gerbault (June 24, 1863– October 19 1930), also spelled Henri Gerbault was a French illustrator and poster artist. He was a student of Henri Gervex. He was the nephew of Sully Prudhomme.

Poster for the Théatre Libre

The Théâtre Libre (French, Free Theater) was a theater founded by André Antoine that operated from 1887 to 1896 in Paris, France. Théâtre Libre was also the name of a European theatrical movement which celebrated Naturalist theatre and defied theatre censorship by founding subscription-based theatres. In London there was the Independent Theatre Society, which debuted the plays of George Bernard Shaw; and Germany had the Freie Bühne. Henrik Ibsen‘s Ghosts was the landmark play for all of these theatres. —Sholem Stein

His œuvre was dedicated to humourist drawings and illustrations. He illustrated authors such as Félicien Champsaur, Charles Perrault and Marcel Prévost.

He worked for numerous illustrated journals of the Belle Époque: La Vie Parisienne, Le Journal amusant, Le Rire, L’Amour, where he was noted for his voluptuous women.

Nobrow manifesto #3

A day at De Slegte and I like Stupid Things

A day at De Slegte and I like Stupid Things

A day at De Slegte and I like Stupid Things

French Undressing – Naughty Postcards from 1900 to 1920,

L’age d’or de la carte postale and

I went to De Slegte and found French Undressing by Paul Hammond, along with the previously acquired L’age d’or de la carte postale and Kaarten, a good start for a bibliography regarding postcards, and certainly naughty postcards.

Paul Hammond is a cultural critic on a pair with Colin Wilson, Ado Kyrou and Greil Marcus, to name but a few. He wrote The Shadow and its Shadow (2000) and Marvellous Méliès (1974).

On the first page of French Undressing Hammond quotes from Rimbaud‘s A Season in Hell (“The Alchemy Of The Word“), possibly the earliest defense of popular culture/mass culture. Such a defense always comes from an intellectual, and thus qualifies as a nobrow manifesto, possibly the first of its kind (see prev. once below). I include it here as Nobrow manifesto #3.

“For a long time I boasted that I was master of all possible landscapes– and I thought the great figures of modern painting and poetry were laughable.

What I liked were: absurd paintings, pictures over doorways, stage sets, carnival backdrops, billboards, bright-colored prints, old-fashioned literature, church Latin, erotic books full of misspellings, the kind of novels our grandmothers read, fairy tales, little children’s books, old operas, silly old songs, the naïve rhythms of country rimes.” –Translation Paul Schmidt

[Youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RWrFUR_CF6c]

Here is a spoken word version of “The Alchemy Of The Word.”

What else did I buy at De Slegte? A silly volume on Baudrillard (pictured below) and an issue of Le Magazine Littéraire dedicated to drug lit, entitled La littérature et la drogue[1] and The Quincunx (I’ve enjoyed this one while on holiday in Malaysia (Tioman Island) twenty years ago).

I did not buy A Humument, Will Self‘s Tough, Tough Toys for Tough, Tough Boys, Le Fantastique dans l’art Flamand by Paul Fierens, Catalog of Unfindable Objects by Carelman, Dictionary of the Khazars by Milorad Pavic and Eros du dimanche by Anatole Jakovsky.

P. S. Previous nobrow manifestos included Sontag’s The Pornographic Imagination [2] and Fiedler’s “Cross the Border — Close the Gap” [3]

On the nature of guilty pleasures

Related: Mondo Cane (1962) – Mondo Bizarro – Italian cinema – Gualtiero Jacopetti

Mondo Cane (1962) – Paolo Cavara, Gualtiero Jacopetti, Franco E. Prosperi

Having recently received comments by Lichanos and o. h. about the validity of guilty pleasure as a separate cultural category I show the film above, Mondo Cane (1962), by Gualtiero Jacopetti and his colleague whose name escapes me at this time.

I always feel tempted instead of arguing to cite a collection of words and concepts which will tautologically exlain the concept. I will not resist the temptation now. Here they come:

bad taste – camp – kitsch – “low culture” – trash – taboo

I continue:

See also: “body” genres” – bread and circuses – “low” art – lowbrow (American art movement) – working class culture – culture – folk culture – popular culture

Related by connotation: artificial – bad taste – basic instinct – camp – cheap – commercial – conventional – common – derivative – entertaining – ephemera – exploitation – formulaic – low budget – lurid – mass – ordinary – pop – popular – proletariat – prurient – sensationalism – scatology – shocking – stereotype – trash – under-the-counter – underground – vulgar

Contrast: “high” culture

See also: low modernism

In film: B-movies – exploitation films – grindhouse films – paracinema – television – video nasties – violent films

In print: comics – escapist fiction – dime novels – genre fiction – men’s magazines – paraliterature – popular fiction – pulp fiction – yellow journalism

In music: disco – house – music hall – popular music – pop music –

In the visual realm: advertising – applied arts – caricature – decorative arts – design – graffiti – kitsch

In performing arts: burlesque – circus – peepshow – striptease – vaudeville –

By genre: adventure – “body” genres – carnival – comedy – horror – melodrama – pornography – romance

Perhaps one day I will put all of the above words in the right order, divide them into chapters, add adjectives, conjunctions, phrases and clauses and page numbers.

Furthermore, guilty pleasures are marketing categories (see the Foute CD products in the Dutch-speaking region), and marketing categories are the strongest indication of genre identity.

Notice that all links go to Jahsonic.com pages, a project which was from the outset a “guilty pleasure” in nature and purpose.

Jean Rollin @70

Happy 70th birthday Jean Rollin.

Franka Mai and Brigitte Lahaie in Fascination image sourced at imagesjournal [1]. [Apr 2005]

Jean Rollin constitutes a decisive chapter in the book Immoral Tales: European Sex & Horror Movies 1956-1984 and discovering him and his universe (which connects to the world of French “low culture”) has been a delight. But do not expect too much of his films. Seeing Jean Rollin films has been an underwhelming experience for Jahsonic. Silly is the best word for the films I’ve seen. And not enough redeeming elements.

However 0

See prev. posts [2]

However 1

cover picture of Fascination

Rollin is a very interesting documentalist (see his work for Jean-Pierre Bouyxou’s Fascination and Eric Losfeld‘s Midi Minuit Fantastique) and connoisseur of Gaston Leroux and all literature of what he calls « second rayon ».

However 2

Calling Rollin connoisseurs.

I am looking for the title of the following excellent short subject by Rollin:

Filmed from the perspective of a painter. Looking at a model. She is a African woman with long and golden nails?. The background music is contemporary classical music. Estimated date of production: late sixties or early seventies.

Anyone?

P. S. If you are new to Rollin check his Google gallery and make sure SafeSearch is off.

RIP Gerard Damiano (1928 – 2008)

Still from Deep Throat featuring Linda Lovelace

Gerard Damiano (August 4, 1928 – October 27, 2008) was an American director of pornographic films. He made the infamous film Deep Throat in 1972 starring Linda Lovelace and Harry Reems, cited in the 2005 documentary Inside Deep Throat as the most profitable film ever made. Other notable films made by Damiano include The Devil in Miss Jones (1973) and the sadomasochistic classic The Story of Joanna (1975).