The naked eye

There was a rather strange and polemical article by Jonathan Jones in today's Guardian that caught your eye. 

"All great civilisations celebrate the naked beauty of women. 

(This was, believe it or not, an article that lamented the demise of Playboy). 

Okay, is that true of Islamic civilisation, or Jewish? If you don't like those terms then perhaps one might say the Islamic and Jewish contribution to civilisation. That is, even if one is not religious one can surely recognize the contribution of the Semitic faiths to civilisation (art, poetry, cathedrals, churches, mosques, scholarship, music...). Have they really "celebrated" the naked beauty of women?

What about Chinese or Buddhist civilisation? Just asking. 

The naked body is "part of how human beings communicate with one another". 

If that's true then why is it predominantly women's bodies that have, throughout recent history, been displayed? How, exactly, is that 'communication'? to me, that doesn't sound like much of a conversation. 

"Societies that praised naked beauty tend to be democratic..."

Okay, but Japan and India were never really very democratic. Greece? Perhaps. But if what we're really talking about is (women's) rights then Greece? Really? What is the relation between "praising" naked beauty and the actual conditions of women's freedom?

Also, why is there no discussion of pornification? Is this display of naked bodies in democratic countries and its huge consumption in non-democratic ones something to be celebrated? What kind of "communication" is that? 

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When I think back to the art that has held me captivated it hasn't been the naked female body. Rubens and Titian are boring. (Of course, Jones's blurring of art with playboy is deeply disturbing). Is the voluptuousness one finds in Rubens the same as a selfie by Kim Kardashian? 

Rothko, of course. Stunning and serene at the same time. (Hammershoi, Auerbach, Poussin..yes!)

But if there was one single painting, I think it would have to be Rembrandt's gorgeous 'Jewish Bride'. (Note to self: must get K. Clark's 1974 lectures on him).

There is something profoundly intimate and gentle (almost fragile) in this painting: I-We. But when you actually see it in real life, what sets it apart is the dazzling gold on the sleeves, the brushwork. Dark and light. 

If Jones was simply a jackass that article would be excusable. But to deny so many other ways of looking-and not looking-as central to civilisation he has simply contributed to the denial of a profound human outlook. Of course, there is a political and polemical aspect to the article as well: freedom is only a freedom from constraints, a reduction of our lives to our bodies, as if to say that pleasure could be envisaged independently of the good. A body free from guilt. 

Yes, then why not Ibiza? 

"The selfie era is a golden age of the civilised nude. Humanity marches forward proud and naked".

Another man, you suspect, going through a mid-life crisis!

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