Models: Laura Henderson, Lucky, and me on the bottom, literally
Photographer: A. J. Kahn
"Art, whose honesty must work through artifice, cannot avoid cheating truth."
~ Poet Adrienne Rich
Why would anyone criticize a model for improving her appearance? Some figure photographers want their models au naturale - no nail polish, makeup, or any enhancements that purists call, well, artificial. But even a nude model is not naked; she wears a role she plays.
In case you've ever wondered, some of us get constant criticism from family members. That's what catalyzed this post. My model-muse, Miss Audrey, recently wrote that a relative told her flat out: She is fake. Like Miss Audrey, I used to hear about it each time I dyed my hair, grew it out, or cut it. No one banned these critics from buying Clairol. As far as I know, models don't go around telling other women they ought to dye their hair, so why rag on us?
I've said it before. I don't get dressed in clothes every day. I wear costumes. We all play parts on the stage of life, so why not dress for them, or better yet, change your role at whim by changing costume, hair, and makeup? That's artifice, yes, and by definition all the arts employ artifice.
All this made me wonder: What is natural anyway? In the way I intend the word to be understood in this post, the best definition would be freedom from artificiality. But isn't the root word for art actually artifice? Is any art natural?
Of course, I had to consult that most bluntly direct source, The Urban Dictionary. Au naturale means without makeup or without hair products; how the good lord brought you into the world. One definition of natural means to have sex without a condom, the way Nature intended. Apparently, while most of us prefer sex without a condom, being completely natural is not necessarily desirable:
A natural is a hippie-type person. They don't go all out to look hip, they just live. Like chicks who dont shave their legs and are all baggy and saggy. I mean, its not a bad thing. But like Iv'e seen some people (my mom) who are SUCH naturals. They wear drapey clothing from the ORIGIN.
For years I chose not to shave my legs, so in no way would I criticize or put down any woman who chooses on principle or for personal comfort not to wear heels, sexy lingerie, or dye and style her hair. I am criticizing those who put down models who enhance their beauty; I support any way a woman chooses to present herself. In the past, I have been critical of models who shave all their body hair, but writing this post makes me think I need to accept that as I would expect my choice to keep my hair to be accepted.
Model photography requires a level of artifice. To claim otherwise crashes us once again into the wall of rules and labels. It's a train wreck.
As I've argued before, modeling is a performing art. In dance and theatre, we use costumes, makeup, hair styling, even wigs, to look a part or change our look or just enhance beauty. For me, one of the joys of modeling is its theatricality. Artifice? Yes. Fake? I don't think so. We know you need to find a real person beneath our facades; it's boring when a model gives no more of her inner self than does an inanimate stage set. Adrienne Rich nailed it: an artist's insights must come through artifice.
A quote from novelist Leo Rosten reminds us that all the arts draw upon our childhood sense of play to tell the stories that record life, teach us, and bring us delight. Is a little girl tripping around in her mother's high heels fake? We all know she's playing with a role.
“Beneath the costume is the child we always are, whose needs are simple, whose daily life is still best described by fairy tales.”
~ Novelist Leo Rosten
17 comments:
You're right; there is nothing "wrong" or inherently evil or otherwise blameworthy in artifice. But I still love to see a person, especially a woman, who neither colors her hair nor shaves any of it nor wears makeup, who, if s/he works to enhance beauty, does it from the inside. I love it even more because it's a rarity in today's world. I'm one of the few men I know who lets my facial hair grow naturally, without shaving it at all. Of course, if I were completely without artifice, I wouldn't shampoo or comb it! *lol*
Jochanaan, you're talking about preference. My point is to understand that all beauty and every great work of art come from within, the crafting of the external is what art is all about. Think of it in terms of music. Think of the training, the raw talent, the composing and fine tuning performance. How natural is that really?
To add to your points (which do make a lot of sense), there is also the case where a person does these modifications to feel like who the person is within. An example would be my sister, who dyes her hair so often (with the favourite colour being purple) that both of us would feel really weird if she were to revert to her original hair colour. It wouldn't feel as if she was indeed herself with undyed hair.
Thanks for the post.. it did make me think. =)
-agxposed
A very good question you've asked here CJ, a very good one indeed. What is it to live without artifice, and where falls the line between artifice and a choice made to meet a natural need of reality? From my perspective a very interesting answer indeed, because that answer goes a long ways towards defining how the person defines their own self across the range of compliance versus choice in terms of the environment that person feels themselves living in. Let me share a couple of points to illustrate.
When I worked in the chemical plant we were forbidden from wearing more than a small mustache, and for a very good reason. Respirators, gas masks, were not a fetish fashion accessory for us, they were critical safety gear where your life might (and more than once did!) depend on that mask making an air tight seal to your face. If you were in the process area you carried a half-face escape mask in a holster on your belt (needless to say, I chuckle at the fetish folk where the closest thing to a nasty vapor they're likely to encounter is the evidence of someone's gastro-intestinal distress, but that's another subject). We all complied without complaint, the need was part of the nature of the environment.
On the other end of the scale are those things where the need isn't physically real, but rather is a construct of the social environment. Compliance there is equally the nature of the environment that is the life support for the individual. A prime example were/are the lasses and ladies working as erotic models for the cam shows. Pretty much all of them stayed baby bare below the waist, Brazilian, and for a reason: that's what way more than half of 'em came to see, make sure they can get a good look, that's where the ratings come from and from the ratings air time and income. Still a survival thing.
Humorous anecdote: Setting my muse into her own category my otherwise absolute favorite of the women was once asked if she preferred wax or a razor, an illegal question she never did answer. Instead she said maintaining such absolute nudity was a total nuisance, said she wouldn't bother ordinarily, and then in a perfect example of sliding a subject said that all things allowed for (in 2007) she wasn't going to complain, that she'd probably do it anyway since there was no way in hell she was going to trust any kind of bush that close to her body for the next couple of years.
Using those points to anchor the ends of the line I'd have to say the break line between artifice (emo-translation: untrustworthy) and natural (assumed rational, and thereby to be trusted) can only be drawn in full consideration of the environment involved, the individuals' choices within the constraints of that environment. Like the gas masks, or going Brazilian, what is contrived and artificial in one environment is absolutely natural in another, and only those who've actually lived the environment in question have the right to say someone else is being fake.
Being contra-social as I am this is a point I remind myself of on a daily basis, to me the greater majority of the things I see (in the realms of personal appearance, the persona shown the world at large) are fake as a three dollar bill. I remind myself that no, until I actually know the environment of the persons' life I can't make that call, not really. It was a sad realization compelled me to take that attitude though. The most basic premises of that bell curve distribution thing are a compelling argument for how many people live with their physical and emotional survival set second to the need to satisfy what they've been convinced is the ultimate survival, their social survival. A truly sad form of slavery to be so totally dependent on the opinions of others.
Cyranos, I think Jochanaan said it pretty well. The real insight/message/person must come through the artifice (the art, which is my meaning of artifice in this post) or it is bad (dead IMO) art.
And no person is completely natural. That's a joke. As Jochanaan also said, he might let his facial grow, but he does shampoo and comb it.
The whole case against artifice is, in itself, fake.
I absolutely LOVE your point, agxposed ! Of course, artifice enables us to better express what is truly within.
ARTIFICE
ENABLES
US
TO
BETTER
EXPRESS
WHAT
IS
WITHIN.
This should be on a bumper sticker or something!
*chuckle* Touché, and fair enough.
In the specific case of a model's environment the demand is to portray a member of some other environment, imo the art being to stage such a portrayal as to be perceived as completely natural, believable, ergo the choices of artifice reflect the understanding of the environment to be portrayed.
I was speaking more to the condition of Ms. Audrey's relative who would call her fake without a full understanding of Ms. Audrey's motivations in the matter. For the majority of the world, those who are not part of the art world, those talismans and totems of appearance are considered full on literal serious, to change them at a rapid rate does translate into an ongoing attempt at deception of some sort. Adding to the confusion is that when there is no obvious target for the deception most folks will come to the conclusion they're the target, and have no earthly idea why. It's an old truism, that you'll never see in someone else what you can't see in yourself, if you can't see yourself using your appearance to play with the assumptions of your world then you'll take the next most likely reason found to be found: they're trying to fool someone, if not someone else then themselves. They must be totally fake, it's the only reason that fits the observed (although not understood) facts.
For a lot of years I was solidly in the category of assuming all those who practice such forms of artifice did so as a form of deception, figured the deception was sponsored by the same powers that sponsor the lies of advertising and commercial materialism, the understanding that at least some of them might have some other motive is fairly new to me, less than a decade old. I'm still considering just how much credibility to put on the idea they're really just playing with their world, because there is equally evidence to the contrary, although not overwhelming evidence. It is one of the reasons I'm here reading your words on a daily basis CJ, yours and Anne of Carversville's and a few others, one of the largest reasons I'm grateful for what I learned from the models who practiced such artifice in simply their own persona without any clothes on at all, and then would take off the artifice as well to show the comparison to their real self.
CJ, I know a lot, and I do mean a lot, of people who truly hate such things, they feel mocked and belittled by them, threatened and insulted. They all share one thing in common, and that is the deep belief that a thing, a person, should look like what it most truly is if it is to be considered honest and honorable, and they pretty much are all in the camp of the ones you'd likely say were your antagonists, your enemies, the ultra-conservatives who wish to reserve such artifice as tools of their power motivated manipulations. I'm not trying to pick a fight or hurt any feelings here, I'm just sending this back for your consideration. For myself I'm trying to understand enough to sabotage the plots and plans of the ultra-conservatives by attacking their line of supply, the social conditioning that leaves such beliefs rigid and absolute among those they hold power over. Honest.
Hellooo Carla!
I think that being natural is to show the reality.
Not necessarily determine what is beautiful and what is ugly.
Reality!
Often the reality is better than the non-natural, sometimes the opposite.
For example, there are wonderful photo editing, even if they do not reflect reality.
Other times I have seen photos of landscapes distorted because of too much technology.
The important thing is not to create illusions.
But as long as there is art, everything is always nice!
kisses
In art there is a term called plastic. Not the stuff they make from oil. We artists plastically manipulate what we see in order to create our vision. People manipulate themselves all the time. Through decoration. Through diet. Through mood and energy. We are not really an au natural being. So basically it comes down to preference. Any judgment about it is more to do with who is doing the judgement than the identified point of judgment. As a painter... I tell the model to come as they are comfortable, as I will add or subtract as I want anyway... To plastically manipulate. So my feeling is, create yourself in a way that you like or create yourself to fulfill a role you deem worthy of your life. One last thought... going au natural is just as intentional as adding something... it is a purposeful aesthetic.
Thomas, your argument is so beautifully articulated. Painting and sculpture make the point so well. In sculpture, the artist is more inclined to minimalize, reduce, take away, and the painter also will stylize, embellish. Your point is so well taken. The photographer has the post production means to change any detail, much more readily than with the darkroom retouch techniques of photography's film past.
At heart, I really think these attacks come from misogynist men who resent women who arouse them (odd thought but emerging to be true), and women who, lacking personal power, constantly compete with other women who in reality do not threaten them at all.
Thank you for so much food for thought!
Thank you for your thoughtful comments, Cyranos and Lapenna Daniele xxxoo
Some strange January thunderstorms pounded us here for hours last night. I am having coffee after a restless night, trying to clear my thoughts. The storm was quite au natural. As Macbeth said in Shakespeare's Scottish play, "'Twas a rough night."
reminds me of the old 'fine art model' vs. 'glamour model' argument.
Really, nothing is 'real' when is comes to creating photo or art images. once you stick a camera somewhere, it alters the reality. If a model wishes to improver her appearance for the camera, then so be it. If the photographer uses Photoshop to clean up some things, so what? you are creating a copy of reality, in the best possible light.
Motives are probably the main point here. Do we use artifice to conceal what is within, or to reveal it? Case in point: A great actor will use all sorts of artifice to reveal truths about his/her character, or the human condition--just the opposite of the "confidence man" who uses artifice to gain trust and other advantages. Bernie Madoff--or Meryl Streep.
And your music analogy is apt, Dr. L. Every time I get up on stage to play, I use artifice--to reveal my naked heart and, I hope, to "gain confidence" not to "con" the audience, but to give them thought and healing and joy.
Vincent, exactly my feelings - whoever said a photograph is a true representation of anything? At least people know better when it comes to the other arts - or do they?
Jochanaan, that's an excellent point about motive.
Meryl Streep's artifice? In my new post today, I see how a fabricated, well-acted story can give insight into real events.
You said; "At heart, I really think these attacks come from misogynist men who resent women who arouse them (odd thought but emerging to be true), and women who, lacking personal power, constantly compete with other women who in reality do not threaten them at all."
I find this facinating... Every moment we are under a constant bombardment of, for lack of a better word, noise. Visual noise, sound noise, smell noise and touch noise. Our brain has an amazing filtering system that picks and chooses what we are concious of. Even when we are asleep we are using this system to keep us aware or allow us to sleep.
So I wonder if this "system" could be used to help us understand ourselves better? Think about it... every day when we get in our cars or walk down a city street we walk by thousands of people. How many do we really notice and why? Based on your statement, some men notice women and are turned on... then they react a certian way. Some women see people and get fearful or judgmental. And I am sure there are a few other iterations of reactions, but basically there is a finite number of reactions...
So maybe who we notice has a reason? Maybe there is something we could learn about ourselves by who we notice and how we react?
oh and it might offer us some compassion for others too, because what ever they see in us and then say... it is about them. It is their playground of growth and development.
You could spend a lifetime stydying each sense and they meaning and reason for everything that we notice... facinating... and sorry if I ramble, I just find us facinating...
Thomas, this idea addresses human complexity, as you note. It would take volumes, not one post, but I'm glad we are thinking about it. I'm sure there are books on the subject out there, or at least professional monographs.
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