Pretty Women, Petty Readers

All right, so maybe I'm a broken record on this topic, but I wish people would lighten up.

Please tell me what is wrong with pretty women? There seem to be an awful lot of people out there that are offended by something nice to look at.

Take the Post. They ran a cover story about two models, one male, one female. To the horror of readers, they even included a couple of pictures. Here's a couple of letters the Post received after the disturbing images went to print:

“I was quite flabbergasted to find these two models gracing your front page,” wrote J. Raj. “Since when do we take credit for physical attributes that have nothing to do with our efforts and performance? And, looking at people disrobing or revealing their physical attributes is not the reason I buy the Post. There are more pressing issues that need our attention.”

“I have a question for the people who decided to put the picture of Jayde Nicole on the front page: Are you sure you would have wanted younger friends and/or relatives to see it?” asked David W. Lincoln. “If ‘no’ is the answer, why are you treating your audience as second class? What isn’t good enough for your younger friends and relatives ought not to be good enough for anyone.”

Oh, get over yourselves. And as for whether or not I would want my relatives to see the pic of Playmate Jayde Nicole, I can't speak for them, but if they didn't forward me the pic, I'd be pissed.

The Post isn't alone. The old time artists caught some grief for the shocking image of a human body. Here's Goya's Nude Maja, and Clothed Maja. There's all kind of rumours for why he painted the second clothed version, but no one is certain. The best guess is that people freaked at the first full-on depiction of pubic hair in Western art (over 150 years before the Pubic Wars of Playboy/Penthouse). Rather than paint over the original, Goya created a whole new painting. Today, they hang together in the Museo del Prado.

To me, the nude is a beautiful piece of art, while the clothed version looks like he painted it in an afternoon while muttering, "Fine, here you go, prudish morons."





Photo Jayde Nicole: National Post

Première Femme

Christie's is planning to auction off a nude portrait of Carla Bruni, the French First Lady. The portrait was taken by photographer Michel Comte during a 1993 photo session.

Bruni is the new wife of French President Sarkozy, and apparently she's ticked that someone is going to try to make some cash from her portrait on the eve of her visit to England.

The Daily Mail reports one of her aides as saying, ""Carla is very angry, not to say deeply upset, that a commercial organization has chosen to release this print at such an important time.

"Her priority is to establish herself on the world stage as a first lady France can be proud of."

Well, I don't know about France, but you can count me in as one of the proud.

Since when are nude portraits shameful? I'm not talking about the grainy, paparazzi beach shots of movie stars. I'm talking about models and artists plying their trade to give us something beautiful, which is what Mrs. Sarkozy is.

She was a gorgeous model and someone took her picture. Big deal. Carpenters don't get grief for houses they built 10 years ago, and models shouldn't take any flack for their past portraits, either.

I love the US and Canada, but our prudishness is ridiculous (even the New York Post would only run the portrait's head and shoulders). In the full portrait, you can see Carla Bruni's breasts. They are human breasts. You can see her face. It's a human face. You can see her feet. They are human feet.

She's a human being. Whether film emulsion or water-based paint, all portraits are attempts at showing us the human form, and it's up to us to decide what we see.

Michelangelo, Titian, Da Vinci, Raphael. To be embarrassed by Bruni's portrait is to be ashamed of the greats. It is worth remembering that Da Vinci and the boys used brush and chisel because it is all they had. If they were around today, who knows what they would have done with a Nikon and Photoshop. Maybe they would have been great. Maybe not.

When I look at Bruni's portrait, I don't see naked vulnerability in those eyes. I see a challenge and some pride. I see attitude, and a healthy dose of bravery.

She needs to keep it.

Photos: Daily Mail & Raphael's La Fornarina