Looks like a miss to me. The tribute could easily be used to sell perfume. I can't see Strand's being used in the same way.Originally Posted by BrianShaw
--Darin
Looks like a miss to me. The tribute could easily be used to sell perfume. I can't see Strand's being used in the same way.
--Darin
Agreed. It was for Calvin Klein, back in the 90s. CK used a lot of B&W photography in their campaigns. Maybe still do?
In what way do you think Strand's image would need to be different to sell perfume?
It would need to be quicker. The tribute sort of hits you right away. The androgynous yet still hot model, the tempting lack of shirt, the strap alluringly drooped onto her shoulder, the Man's height perspective. It's a "Do you want to fuck me?" shot. Hits you all at once and then there is no more. It's selling something (I thought maybe perfume--it has that look.)
Strand's takes longer and perhaps offers more. First you see the eyes and the difficult to interpret expression. You sort of see the farm-y nature of the whole thing. Then you notice the fabric of the shirt which looks sort of girlie, and then the androgyny of the whole thing comes into clearer focus. And for some reason you keep looking at the wooden fence.
The tribute girl looks like you've come upon her unexpectedly or maybe even cornered her there, vulnerable, willing. (Selling, in fact.) Strand's boy is more complicated and looks accusatory one moment, defiantly proud the next.
--Darin
Last edited by Darin Boville; 7-Dec-2011 at 16:26. Reason: Speling erors
Wow, do you have a different perspective, Darin. I never thought of thinking thoughts like that!
Comparatively, I find Strand's boy to look embalmed.
No offense intended, Paul.
If you ask James Joyce, this makes Peter Lindbergh a pornographer.
-----
James Joyce, in A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, makes a distinction between what he calls “proper art” and “improper art.”
By “proper art” he means that which really belongs to art.
“Improper art,” by contrast, is art that’s in the service of something that is not art: for instance, art in the service of advertising.
Further, referring to the attitude of the observer, Joyce says that proper art is static, and thereby induces esthetic arrest, whereas improper art is kinetic, filled with movement: meaning, it moves you to desire, or to fear and loathing.
Art that excites desire for the object as a tangible object he calls pornographic.
Art that excites loathing or fear for the object he terms didactic, or instructive...
Say you are leafing through a magazine and see an advertisement for a beautiful refrigerator. There’s a girl with lovely refrigerating teeth smiling beside it, and you say, “I'd love to have a refrigerator like that.” That ad is pornography.
By definition, all advertising art is pornographic art.
(From Joseph Campbell’s book, Reflections on the Art of Living)
Darin,
Thank you for your thoughtful analysis. You make a very good case for Lindbergh's image being better for its purpose than Strand's for the same purpose, but I don't see how that makes Lindbergh's a "miss". For me, it's a very skillful homage to the original image, alluding to its androgynous sexuality, and a play on Strand's "straight" photography. For me, it works on multiple levels.
Heroique,
That doesn't surprise me at all, coming from Joyce. Art and advertising had a different relationship in his time. What would he say about art appropriated for advertising? Does the art become pornographic? I think that kind of intentionalism has had its day.
What I see in this classic photograph is much simpler than the imposed cultural narrative of androgynous sexuality that others here are seeing.
Strand has titled the photograph "Young Boy" and that is exactly what he is... a beautiful young boy from a very small agrarian village far from the cultural influence of Paris. He is actually iconic... the shirt is not 'girly' ... hand knitted undershirts are common in rural France, this and his coveralls appear to be handmade... probably by his Mother.
He is seated... look at the level of the door latch... purposely for the taking of his portrait. He is a young boy on the verge of manhood... he does not yet shave... he is being confronted by an adult with a camera in a situation that he may perceive as formal & important. I believe that he is looking at the camera with the intensity of what he believes it is to be a man... the iris of his eyes is dark and cannot be easily discerned from the pupil and adds to the power of his stare.
Naturally the photograph is a masterwork of light and texture... and I too adore the way the wave of his hair is the reiteration of the curve of his lip... but for me the power is that Strand captured the defiant stare of a "Young Boy" who wished to be taken seriously as a man.
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