I've been reading about the various teachers and the controversies over nude art and the nude art tradition. About teaching nude art in the grade schools and high schools.
Many of these teachers are having to retire and resign because they dare to teach grade school and high school students about the nude art tradition, which is a very ancient tradition.
Sometimes it's just mentioning nude art in a classroom, sometimes it's taking children to an art museum where there's a nude sculpture, sometimes it's actually posing for nude photographs. But, of course, according to the teachers, artistic nude photographs.
Then, some school board or some parent or some local community group says that these teachers have done such great wrong that we don't want them in our schools. They shouldn't be teaching our children.
You can read about all these controversies online.
Let's call all of these communities "Frisco, Texas." Except of course "Frisco, Texas" can be anywhere in the world, from India to ancient Persia. Another community is Middletown, New York. Middletown, New York can be anywhere.
There is also the web-based artistic nudes or artistic porn. Artistic photos or artistic porn? This is certainly controversial.
Just because people are artists doesn't mean they are not also pornographers, of course. Just because they are art teachers doesn't mean they're not pornographers. How can we tell what is art? Yes, these are questions that we should consider. Artists must also consider this.
Are nude stage plays art or porn? Are nude rock stars on stage music or porn? Are all these people claiming to be artists truly artists?
Most societies have their taboos when it comes to matters of nudity and sexuality, even artistic.
The erotic can be controversial even in those so-called primitive societies where almost everybody is nude. Even in these nude societies there are sexual and artistic taboos.
Certainly, as several articles detail, communities need to be concerned about "corrupting the morals of youth," as always, about internet solicitations of minors, of internet pornography, however, they must also be scrupulous to teach children the difference between nudes as high art, as as innovative design, and nudes as pure porn. Is there a difference? And if so, how can we tell the difference?
Is ancient art art and modern art porn? Certainly modern art nudes can resemble pure porn. How do we know the difference? And certainly artists can and have corrupted morals just like the pornographers. And certainly, precisely because they are artists that they can encourage people to think their form of porn is acceptable. These are certainly questions to consider.
Certainly it's a problem for artists themselves when making use of the artistic nude traditions, because many communities make the assumption that these artists are prurients. Not necessarily so. Because of the great tradition of nude art, certainly most artists when learning art are going to learn that tradition, and that tradition is going to influence many artists. When the great artists do nudes, then of course, artists are going to learn nude art and they are going to imitate nude art. Sometimes they continue the tradition, sometimes they find this is not their art, and they find other subjects, like landscapes or abstracts. These are also traditonal.
But nudist colonies and resorts have their rules, meaning that you can be nude but you can't think erotic. You can't even think "exotic." These are naturals. But even some nudists are "puritanical" in their philosophies of nudism to distinguish nudists who are truly good people from the wicked pornographers. Be nude but don't have prurient thoughts. Well, we can't patrol the thoughts of these nudists, but nevertheless their philosophy is accepted in many nations.
But as for these good art teachers, certainly they should understand that even in modern and postmodern societies communities and school boards and parents are not all artists, and they are in a highly sexualized society. There's enough for them to do battle with the rock stars and rappers leading their children astray with their sexualized art. And certainly this art appeals to the erotic sensibilities of children.
Now the good teachers in their good little puritan communities? These are teachers.
Plus, they have to teach these little kids that these nude sculptures are art not pornography, and to distinguish this from the sexualized art of pop music, and especially when many of their favorite pop stars look like porn kings and queens.
If it's difficult for the adults to understand the difference between art and pornography certainly it's difficult for these little children.
Or perhaps these little children understand that art is art and pornography is pornography. Maybe the 'ho is not even sexual for these little children. It's pop art.
We could ask the little children if they understand the difference?
We could also ask the little children if they ever become artists, given the nature of so many "Frisco, Texas" and "Middletown, NY" communities around the world, are they going to continue the great tradition of the artistic nude?
Since most of the great artists have participated in the artistic nude tradition from the ancient world, including aboriginal art, to the postmodern world of great art, it's problematic for any art teacher to teach art without showing these great artistic nudes.
Of course, we can censor all of these great artists. We can even exclude them from all our art books.
Meaning that most of the art of the Western world, the Eastern world, and the Southern world, we're not going to learn a great deal about, like the schools that don't let their kids read Mark Twain. As for the Northern world, we assume the Northern world doesn't have as many nudes. But we'll have to study Artic Circle and North Pole Inuit (Eskimo) People's Sculptures and find out if nudes are among their great tradition, along with the bird, bears, and dancing bears. The shamans, the drums dancers, and the hunters.
Artists can encourage people towards high ideals or low ideas just like anybody else. Certainly there are artistic periods in which the artists are purely decadent, pure porn stars, and sometimes they are truly sublime artists making use of high ideals and high ideas of the artistic nude, as some nudists are moral philosophers and others are prurients. But in "clothing optional" environment we're not supposed to think lewd thoughts. But can we determine who is whom?
When James Joyce wrote Ulysses, the greatest novel of the twentieth century according to many--is this high art or pure porn in many of the chapters? Society determine high art. Yet many imitators of Joyce do not achieve more than pure pornography, because their art has not attained that level, even though their motives might be pure.
All artistic nudes are not high art. Some artistic nudes are low art. Some artistic nudes are not art at all. Yet some are the highest artists with the highest motives and strivings.
Artists and societies must consider these ideas, and have been considering these ideas such ancient times.
