Tag: Things of beauty

Art, music, whatever

The Sweetness Of Doing Nothing

Fine Art

…or Il Dolce Far Niente, as the Italians would have it — and why not? it’s about as Italian an attitude as one can get, where there’s an alternative to being busy.

I consider myself something of an expert on the activity, because for example nothing spells “vacation” better than lying on one’s back, emptying the mind of, well, everything and just looking at the sky.  I can and have done that many times in my life, and only some vestigial Protestant work-ethic guilt keeps me at all busy.

But that’s not what I want to talk about today.

Instead, I want to point you to English artist John William Godward, who exemplifies to me the late-Victorian art movement that bypassed the strict Puritanism of the era, simply by virtue of the fact that one could show the naked or semi-naked female form without censure, provided that it was couched, so to speak, in some kind of Classical allegory.  (“Venus In The Mirror”, for example, has been used as an artistic fig leaf for centuries.)

Well, Godward’s family didn’t much care for this attitude, and when he went to live in Italy with one of his models, they pretty much erased all memory of him out of their lives (literally;  they cut him out of all family photographs;  and as such, there are apparently no photos of him in existence).  Anyway, they wanted him gone out of their lives, and he granted their wish by committing suicide at age 61.

Godward is famous for his painting entitled Il Dolce Far Niente, and in fact used it as a theme for a great many of his later works.  Here’s the first:

And a few other examples in the same vein:

I love that he captures the feeling of dreamy indolence of a summer’s day in Italy — note the classical clothing and setting of each — along with a subtle underplay of eroticism.  (In turn-of-the-century Britain, by the way, there would have been nothing at all “subtle” about it, hence the scandal.)

Of course, he didn’t stop there.  Still in that disguise of Classicism, here are a couple more daring visions:

And of course, there were those works which threw away all pretense at Classicism (and clothing too):

To modern eyes, Godward’s style might seem stilted and unrealistic, perhaps.  But at the time he painted them, that’s about as “modern” as they got.

I like just about every work he ever created.

Random Totty, July 4th Edition

Gratuitous Chick Pics


…Mrs. Harry Hamlin, at 60.


...lost her virginity at age 14.  Why are we not surprised?


…as seen on OnlyFans.


…who says she’ll NEVER take Ozempic to lose weight.


...not yer Heidi from the children’s story.


...a Real (?) Housewife.


…must have just missed an easy putt.

From top:  Lisa Rinna, Emma Hernan, Leah McSweeney, Blanca Blanco, Heidi Montag, Alexis Bellino (bellisima, surely?), Paige Spirinac, the rest unknown.

Happy Birthday, America

History

Now go and light up some fireworks, eat some good ol’ Murkin food (tacos?) and have a good time in general.

Because in the not too distant future, we may have some work to do.

 

Or, more likely:

Just sayin’.

Let Freedom Ring

Gratuitous Chick Pics

…or to be more specific, Let The Girls Swing.  Some middle-aged tart thinks that British women should be more like their French counterparts when it comes to going topless:

British women, after all, still get remarkably hot and bothered over the concept of being ‘beach body ready’, as if the very idea of displaying the female form is inherently sexist or objectifying. 

At that time, I had lived in France for 14 years and, in my view, British women rather overthink all this, while the French just get on with topping up their tans. 

Let’s not even talk about American women’s attitude to the above topic.  The Puritan spirit lives on…

As a red-blooded heterosexual man, I could easily smirk and urge Teh Wimmens to follow the suggestions of Miss Brick, because anyone familiar with these pages knows that I am an unashamed admirer of les seins impressionnants, as witnessed by my frequent paeans of praise for this part of the female anatomy as personified by proud breast-bearers such as Salma Hayek, Nigella Lawson, Carole Vorderman et al.

I think you get the picture(s).

I also know that there are the Fussy Ones out there — the people who might whine that if toplessness were to be confined to such as the above, everything would be dandy.

“But FFS Kim,” they say, “there are an awful lot of women out there who shouldn’t be displaying their uncovered frontage!”

I say this:  if in the name of our Second Amendment freedoms I can put up with ugly-ass guns like Glock or H&K, then we men should be similarly accommodating to the occasional sight of, shall we say, less than ideal examples of womanly pulchritude.

In other words, to quote Derek Robinson, just relax and enjoy your problem.  I also say that if we get the chance to see things like this:

…we should accept the fact that we will occasionally be exposed to this:

You may call it whatever you want, but I just think of it as

,,,and we all know how important that is, n’est ce pas?

In fact, for the month of July, all Caption Competitions will feature pictures of naked women.  That’s how strongly I feel about it.