Wednesday, April 6, 2011

Gimme a pigfoot and a bottle of beer...

Bessie Smith and her lyric came to mind as I read a perceptive article about Bajan megastar Rihanna.  The writer shuddered at the culture of decadence that her songs promote, just as I am sure that they shuddered at the scratchy sound of Bessie Smith in the 1920’s. 

D. H. Lawrence claimed that the sensual passions should be considered equally as sacred as the spiritual passions.  For him, “The only thing unbearable is the degradation, the prostitution of the living mysteries in us…Lewdness is hateful because it impairs our integrity…” 

In a roundabout way, this brings us back to the frequent misunderstanding of the nude in art: the confusion of purity and pornography.   Here, in all its innocence, is a painting I made of Denise almost twenty years ago.

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