I’ve always found it peculiar how people tend to praise statues and paintings of “healthy” — even plump — female subjects for their beauty, and yet beyond the museums, these same people deem women whose body forms are similar to those artforms unattractive, fat, or a slew of other adjectives. How is it, I wondered, that we concoct this disjuncture between what we consider beautiful art and what we consider beautiful in the world around us (not that this isn’t art in some ways)?
Apparently, the residents of a small town in Tennessee are attempting to do away with this disjuncture. But now I’m left wondering whether it is best to acknowlege that we should be able to distinguish our opinions on bodies in art from our opinions on bodies in “the real world.”
In response to complaints about the classical-style, nude female statues at G & L Garden Center, the center covered the statues with two-piece sarongs. Apparently, doing so doesn’t just conceal the art. It also adds another layer to the art as the clothes alter the representation that people see and think about. Now many customers try to peek underneath the sarongs — which almost seems to suggest that people consider the statues to be no different than human bodies. Which, of course, begs the question: why do we continue to differentiate between artistic representations of the human body and the body itself?
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