THE KISS.

Probably the most likely image to come to mind when seeing the words THE KISS as far as art is concerned is the huge stone sculpture by the renown French sculptor Auguste Rodin.   Apart from the fact that one has to admire the sheer physical ability of carving such a huge piece stone ,having  seen it many times and touched it too I don’t myself see it as a thing of beauty – or even truly representing the erotic pleasure of the kiss. 

 

 A more modern interpretation of a vaguely similar pose by Jacob Epstein is without doubt also an incredible piece of art, but to me personally still doesn’t really characterise the erotic reality of two persons engaged in a naked caress.

 

The posture of Rodin’s sculpture has been copied many times since its inception, by various artists and commercial enterprises and sold practically all over the world.   Some are good, some not so good and some totally indifferent in both artistry and quality.

 

If I had the opportunity to choose any one of them no matter what the cost, I would take the one that has sat on top of a chest of drawers in my bedroom since it was bought for me by my lover almost 20 years ago.  We have often tried -without much success -to capture the pose ourselves  in various photographic sessions over the years  – however lack of achievement did not lessen  the pleasurable experience.

 

There are of course various kinds of kissing.   A kiss on the cheek is no more than a sign of friendship - a kiss on the mouth a sign of familial love.  Parents kiss their children – children kiss their (older) parents .    A kiss on the mouth between adult men and women can also indicate a closer kind of friendship, not necessarily sexual.  In some countries heterosexual men/women  may also kiss family members or very close friends on the mouth without any sexual motivation.   

A sexual kiss is very different – for this there needs to be no personal connection at all.  It can be between man and wife, lovers, casual acquaintances or even complete strangers.

 

Within seconds of a sexual kiss the brain makes an almost immediate connection between the lips of each individual to their own genital regions.  If this does not happen almost straight away the kiss has little chance of lasting satisfaction.

 

Kissing is a universal form of communication because it is a natural human instinct. Anthropologists believe that kissing originated as a derivative of pre-mastication –chewing food until it was soft and then transferring it into the baby’s mouth. 

Modern sex play often involves passing erotically charged foods – sweets, oysters, strawberries and etc; and drink especially from lovers – mouth to mouth. So there might be some truth in this theory.

 

Ancient Chinese erotica links the upper lip of a woman’s mouth to her clitoris and the lower lip of a man to his penis.  Their manuals of sex instructed the woman to run the tip of the tongue along the mans lips and then gently suck his upper and lower lips individually.   Sounds good to me.

Philemamania is a constant craving for kissing.

Collette. 

Just about the most unusual and in many ways very erotic description of A  (sexual) KISS that I have ever come across is from a story entitled la Vagabonde,  a part autobiographical work – written in 1908 by the French writer, author and enfant terrible known as Collette. The hero of the novel was  based on her real life husband  Henri Gauthier  Villars, known as Willy .

Sidonie – Gabrielle Collette , born in 1873 in Burgundy is recognised as being one of the great writers of modern times and although she is often associated with immorality and depravity , dancing in the nude, lesbian adventures and other depravity – shocking behaviour even for the times she lived in – she was in fact a deeply moral and truly liberated woman. 

 

“I move my head imperceptibly because of his moustache, which brushes against my nostrils with a scent of vanilla and honeyed tobacco.  Oh! .... Suddenly my mouth, in spite of itself opened up  as irresistibly as a ripe plum splits in the sun.

And once more is borne that excruciating pain that spreads from my lips all the way down to my flanks, to my knees, that swelling as of a wound that wants to open once more and overflow – the voluptuous pleasure I had forgotten - his mouth tastes of mine now and has the faint scent of my powder.  

Experienced as it I can feel that it is trying to invent something new, to vary the caress still further. But already I am bold enough to indicate my preference for a long, drowsy kiss that is almost motionless – the slow crushing one against the other of two flowers in which nothing vibrates but the palpitation of two coupled pistils.”

 

The Kiss as a specific did not make much of an appearance in either ancient or modern art, but has more than made up for it in recent times , mainly used in photographic images in the promotion of just about every kind of product under the sun. 

 

 

 

 

even old people love to kiss.

an artistic kiss

 

a multiple kiss-in

It also features in modern erotica in many instances providing a useful  separation between this more civilised genre and the crudeness of the vast majority of pornography.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

NUDITY IN MODERN PHOTOGRAPHIC ART.

When I first began writing about the naturist lifestyle  I very soon came to realise that most of the criticism came from people that for one reason or another were not so much offended as extremely uncomfortable with the naked body – not only other people’s, but their own too.  After I while I began to ponder on how I might help to make people more aware of the naturalness of nudity and how natural nudity has been with us forever. For most of the time that humans have been on this earth nudity was no more than a very ordinary part of normal life – so if that fact could be simply and easily accepted by people at all levels of society, then why all the fuss  about a few naturists . 

 

If you are ever out on a shopping trip in the West End of London and fancy a midday snack and drink in the company of  people with a more artistic kind of bent than the average Oxford Street shopper, then you couldn’t do better than to call into the cafe at The  Photographers’ Gallery.  Only a stones throw away from The Palladium in nearby Argyll Street , it’s the largest public arena  in London dedicated to the genre and has been instrumental in establishing photography’s important role in culture and society.

I discovered it some years ago when I began a series called “Nudity in Ancient Culture” – describing and illustrating a time when right across the world the human body in it’s naked form was depicted everywhere, in worship as well as everyday life and even expressed in explicit sexual detail on  ordinary household goods.    After that I went on to compose another series called “ Nudity in Art “ , beginning with early religious images and working my way right through the ages and up to modern times.

There was no shortage of things to write about,  I covered events as far apart as The Royal Academy in London to little back street galleries and studios all over Europe and many of them were published over the years in various international travel and art magazines.    However , bad publicity over the past few years it seemed created a kind of  back lash in the world of modern art and good old fashioned nudity went into hiding - to be replaced by stuffed sheep in fish tanks , dirty unmade beds and pieces of human excreta to name just a few , while the naked body was sidelined  for a while.  

But as usual, things do eventually turn full circle – and the effect of this could be seen at the end of 2013 in a show of modern photographic art in central London at the aforementioned Photographers Gallery.   Unfortunately the exhibition finished in January 2014 but the fully illustrated book produced to accompany the exhibition is still available from the Gallery Bookshop.

 

 ‘Home Truths: Photography, Motherhood and Identity ‘.  was  curated by the British writer Susan Bright who presently lives in New York City and teaches at the School of Visual Arts there.  Concerned about what seemed to be an insatiable appetite for photographs of celebrity mums as well as the current trend to photograph everything however inappropriate it might be, Ms Bright’s main aim was to challenge the long held stereotypes of women and motherhood, but in fact it was much more than that.

 

With work carefully selected from a dozen highly talented international photographers from Israel ,Spain and Mexico as well as the USA , this was a serious presentation not only about women and motherhood, but also an intense reflection on a modern contemporary art form. 

 

All the work in this exhibition was of a high quality, but for me some is worth a special mention.  In most of the pictures the centrepiece of the imagery is the mother figure often heavily pregnant , but not all.  Leigh Ladere for example , explores his relationship with his mother,  a beautiful and talented ballet dancer in her early career but reduced through circumstances to working as a stripper in later life  seen from his own viewpoint as the son.   This is a most remarkable archive containing photographs of their most private moments and as such is so explicit to give the show an adult only rating.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Justine Kurland, an American fine art photographer whose work has been profiled in The New York Times, Vogue, and Elle magazine was also represented in the accompanying exhibition book.  Her pictures of men , young women and children often completely naked, wild, freakish looking and set amongst the most incredible landscapes have quite rightly brought her due fame and recognition. It is truly remarkable and in all my forty years study of art and nudity I have never seen anything quite like it. 

 

 

 

 

 

I sometimes wonder if my work over the years has had any positive effect in changing the general perception of nakedness, but I shall keep on trying for as long as I still have the strength. In any case, each time I discover the kind of creative artistic ability in exhibitions of this type I am encouraged to go on - and there’s more to come as something quite new and equally positive has just popped up on the London scene .   

The Photographers Gallery is at Romillies Street, London W1.  Booking Info