There is no conspiracy.

[daphnep]

Okay, after a fair amount of interest in my "Improving Aphrodite" post from the other day, I made it public, and I'm happy to see so many people as piqued by the injustice to art and anatomy as I was.

If you're here linked from another site, welcome, and come right in.

I feel I need to say one more word, though, in defense of the company (and the individuals) making the models and reproductions. This is my industry, it's my profession, and I'd like to tell you a little bit about how it works, and in the process, what YOU can do to stop it when you see something like this that enrages you.

Basically, there is no conspiracy. These are NOT a deliberate and wanton desecration of the original artworks; the sculptors and model-makers are "innocent victims" of the system and not deliberately trying to persecute women or harm anyone's body-image. In reproducing art, we often have to alter it a bit to fit the medium, heightening and brightening a painting's colors to make it look better (and more salable) on a poster, for example. What happened here wasn't someone saying "let's make Venus stick-thin and bobble-headed, anorectic and childlike, and carve away the flesh of her tummy and the bones of her hips", they just made a little sculpture and thought, looking at it, that it didn't look "right". So they adjusted a bit. They adjusted using their best eye and their best judgment, in a world where their own eyes and judgment have been formed by a million other images that came before this one. For every Aphrodite this model-maker has seen, he/she has also seen a million Photoshopped movie posters, advertisements, and magazine covers. His/her kids probably play with "Bratz" and "Barbie" dolls. He/she probably has body issues of his/her own, as most people do in our culture today.

And when that individual went to produce a model, they didn't see that it was inaccurate and grotesque, they thought it looked like something their customers (potentially YOU) would want to buy in a store or catalogue. And this is retail, and as I always say, "retail is the purest form of democracy", and it's a democracy that works really well: we can't keep producing anything that you, the consumers, won't buy. Keep in mind that I took those photos from a wholesale, to-the-trade publication. I didn't order those items to put on the shelf for MY customers. You probably haven't seen those on the shelves where you shop. The democracy is working. If no-one orders it, if I and all the other buyers think the pieces are hideous, the model-makers are going to come up with something else to sell. That's how the system works.

So you can write letters to companies if you want to, and explain why you won't buy their products, but it's the "buying the product or not" that the company cares about most--the system has been shaped by consumer sales: Oprah on a magazine cover, thin, sells more issues than Oprah on a magazine cover, curvy. Movie posters that show a disproportionally stretched actress sell more tickets than movie posters that show the actress as she is. "Bratz" dolls sell better than "Happy to be me" dolls, no matter what lip-service is paid to body-love and self acceptance.

So I want you to see these images, so that you can become a more savvy consumer of images, and so that you can recognize the distortions when you see them on retail shelves and advertising yourself. But I'd also like to implore you, before you dash off an angry letter to a wholesale art reproduction company (especially if it's a business you have not previously supported with your dollars) to think about the businesses you do support and the ways that you can positively encourage them to change and improve their habits, and watch out for times you find yourself "voting" for unrealistically deformed bodies, yourself, by responding to advertising that builds on all the same values and misconceptions that formed the terrible shapes of the plastic goddesses, below.

That's all. Thank you, again, for reading.

Comments

[evilegg.livejournal.com]

So they are marketing with their wallets and not recreating with their eyes?

[daphnep.livejournal.com]

Would there be any other reason to be in the plastic model-making business?

[ampersand.livejournal.com]

Hear, hear.

[ernunnos.livejournal.com]

Sorry, I don't buy it. In either sense.

First, if those artists were making art for themselves, I'd believe that it was an accident, just the result of all the other things they've seen. But they're not doing that. They're making a reproduction. They have source material. Probably photographs sitting right there in front of them. If the result is so shocking to casual, non-artistic observers like me, then there's no way someone with an artist's eye should be able to look at these sculptures next to the source and say, "Yeah, I did a good job." They have to know what they're doing, and that means it has to be deliberate.

Second, I've been thinking about body image a lot lately, because I've been playing Saint's Row 2, a video game with body and face creator. I've created myself. Other people I play with have done the same. One of them created Samuel L. Jackson in the game, and he's instantly recognizable. If a bunch of geeks with a video game sculpting tool can get likenesses so right from photos, then a professional sculptor should be able to do the same.

You're right that it's driven by sales, but I don't think it's possible that the artists are unconscious of the whip.

[low-delta.livejournal.com]

I don't think that was her point. She said, the sculptors are not deliberately trying to persecute women or harm anyone's body-image.

In other words, they're doing it on purpose, but that purpose is not to be harmful, but to make money.

[daphnep.livejournal.com]

But here's the thing: we change art all the time in reproductions, for GOOD reasons. Take Michelangelo's "David", for example. If one makes an exact-scale smaller model of David, he looks TERRIBLE, because on a smaller scale, one notices what one doesn't see, looking up at him from 13 feet below: his head is enormous in proportion to his body. Michelangelo did that deliberately (and it is part of his "genius") because he knew that people would be looking up at him from 13 feet below.

A table-top model does not have the same proportional needs, and to make a reproduction that looks "right", a really good model-maker will gently and respectfully rescale David's head. I myself change art all the time, even looking directly at the original work, and making (I hope) subtle changes to translate the piece into a new medium--taking green out of a portrait's face to keep the subject from looking "ill" in reproduction, or changing tones to make a color translate into silkscreen inks, for example. ALL of the time, all of the changes I make, it is motivated by wanting the finished product to look good, and to be appealing as an object in a store (removed from the original), and to sell, so that we can produce it over and over again and to sell it over and over again.

I'm just a more conservative "changer" of great art, because I happen to respect it so much, I want my changes to be like good plastic surgery, where you can't even tell it was done. This was just poor model-making, sloppy cosmetic surgery by an unskilled person (who, from what I can tell...and remember, I have the additional context of the full catalog... has studied neither anatomy nor classic art)

[fizzyland.livejournal.com]

So the debate over stick-thin models in fashion is now over - it's our fault?

[daphnep.livejournal.com]

I'm not laying "fault"...but we're late enough into the debate that enough people in the industry have tried the alternatives.

A toy company made a "Happy to be me" doll...sales were crap. "Bratz" dolls sales, meanwhile, skyrocketed, and took over, with their bobble-heads and deformed faces.

A magazine company made a "Celebrate Real Women!" magazine (called Mode) and it didn't sell, went out of business after a couple of years.

Fashion designers put on "plus size" fashion shows, even (the latest was in Italy) and you know what? They did it once. Why? Because it didn't move clothing like the shows with skinny models did.

So I ask you, if there's such a cultural consumer demand for "real women", beyond mere lip service, then why are none of these industries able to capitalize on it?

[chaeri.livejournal.com]

well put!

slightly tangential question: i thought Oprah's ratings on TV went up when she was curvier than otherwise? of course, the fact that ratings and sales are tied to her weight says something very scary about the culture...

[daphnep.livejournal.com]

Oh, Oprah....poor Oprah. I don't know. We could write a whole book on that woman and her body issues, just between a small handful of us here on lj.

I hope that's true, about the ratings. I hope one day she manages to find a little bit of real body-love, somewhere in among all her other discoveries.

[stachybotrys.livejournal.com]

Something I've been thinking about since your initial post about this is that it seems like a lot of us tend to forget that the original pieces didn't represent stark reality either, but were idealizations that were marketable in their time. It's easy to forget because the reproductions are so badly done and flat out unattractive, but the real world that was contemporary to the original works was most likely not populated by people who looked like those represented any more than the stretched and bobble-headed reproductions look like the majority of the people walking around today. It's not a new phenomenon.

[daphnep.livejournal.com]

Huh. You're right. Botticelli's female neighbors were probably all gossiping "have you seen those hips and those boneless, elegant hands? What an outrage!"

Ha. I love that.

[merimask.livejournal.com]

Hi! Followed a link to your first entry & hence, here.

As a fellow artist, I totally agree & I see where you're coming from. The consumer drives the demand, and yet...it's the culture of mediocrity that gobbles up the skinny models & "skinny art", I think. The outrage (for me, as an artist AND a woman) lies in the fact that this revisionist sculpture was in a magazine selling fine art reproductions, masquerading as fine art. Kitschy fine art, to be sure...but fine art just the same.

On the cover of Vogue, I expect it. Even in BRATZ dolls, it's upsetting & yet, it's what we want as Americans (not me...I wouldn't buy a BRATZ doll for my kid if they were the only toys on earth). But revisionist classical art is as upsetting as revisionist history, & something to be avoided.

I completely understand that some models have to be revised somewhat to make sense in the scaled-down version (your example of "David" was spot-on & completely relevant) but taking classical art body-types & making them look like Kate Moss...that's just ridiculous.

Kudos to you...a very thought-provoking discussion, here. ^_^

[daphnep.livejournal.com]

Thank you. I think one of the details that makes a difference here is that it wasn't a magazine per se, it was a wholesale, "to-the-trade" industry catalog.

It's an advertisement, like, "hey, if your customers are interested in art, you might be interested in what we have to offer." And I (and I presume others in my position who DO have fine art backgrounds and who also DO know a little bit about female anatomy) are free to say "no thank you". Which I did. And I thought the models were funny, because they were so pathetic and so poor in the full context of "products I can buy for my fine-art-loving customers". I think it's terribly sad if that were to be the only experience with Botticelli a person would ever have, and I think it's a sad indicator of what people (and businesses) expect Americans to want to buy, these days.

But I'm not buying them...so I'm not even giving people in my little slice of the universe an opportunity for that to be their only art experience, or their only concept of what a nekkid woman looks like.

I just wanted to pass the chuckle on to other art-loving, woman-loving friends before I chucked the terrifying thing into the trash can.

[esprix.livejournal.com]

I don't buy the artist saying, "It doesn't look quite right" and adjusting. They're obviously using the original as reference, so how can they *not* see they're making it different?

Now, if you mean "doesn't quite look right" as in "doesn't quite look like what it should look like in today's market/based on what I see around me" regardless of their profit motive, then that I could believe; i.e., if it was subconscious. Similarly, if they were told by a dilettante of a boss that she was too fat and no one would buy her that way, I could believe that, too.

[daphnep.livejournal.com]

They might be sort of using the original as reference. These aren't officially licensed reproductions. This is some guy/gal in China with no fine-art background, probably working from a postcard or jpeg of a sculpture which he/she will probably never see in his/her life. I'm gonna cut them some slack.

[zellion.livejournal.com]

Sorry, but after reading books like "The Beauty Myth" I believe there *is* a conspiracy, it's just not one being thought up by people who do art reproductions. I agree that this company in question is just caught up in the larger issue like the rest of us.

[daphnep.livejournal.com]

Oh, good! So you know, too, that it's a "conspiracy" with which we are complicit every time we buy into it with our own money, and that the "conspiracy" is funded by the money we freely give up to it.

It does tend to make shopping hard...but conscious consumers are damn good consumers, IMO.

[primad.livejournal.com]

Coming here after seeing (and not commenting on) the original post, I was struck by how overall the reproductions weren't like the originals in general (aside: especially the Thorvaldsen Venus), considering that they were in a magazine devoted to fine art reproductions.

My question, my first guess based on what you said in the original post was that the primary market would be supplying museums' gift shops but would the market for these pieces really be outdoor cart vendors seperate from the official venues? Because this reminded me much of the plastic version of The Pietà my grandmother had that she likely picked up from a shrine gift shop. I never thought it was meant to be "high art" but she was very proud of it despite it only having a passing appearance to the original.

[daphnep.livejournal.com]

Yes, exactly, on all of it. (It was a catalog, not a magazine...but you're right). It's not high art, it's exactly like your grandmother's figurine.

It's a poorly-done reproduction, but that's all.

[fantasyecho.livejournal.com]

This is an interesting discussion, but I disagree with your defense of the artists of the work. If something is harmful, it is still harmful, no matter what the intent, and the producers of this kind of work need to know it. It's even WORSE when they're not self-conscious of the stupidity they're perpetuating. If someone is being racist, for example, I'm not going to let it slide as them being ignorant of racist history, I'm going to educate them the best I can. At the very least, they'd know what they were doing and could decide whether to continue or to try to subvert their industry.

[daphnep.livejournal.com]

In what way do you see it as harmful?

My opinion is that it can only be "harmful" if we confuse these representations with reality--if, perhaps, we take them seriously and wrap up our own self-identities with them. This is why I posted them, and why I think we should all learn to be savvy consumers of visual media. We're in a Photoshop-happy media culture, and once you start looking and really seeing what we're being fed, and what we're all pretending are representations of reality, well, it starts to look downright absurd.

But the great thing is that once you start to notice it, it loses any power. These are nothing but little plastic figurines, and badly-done ones at that.

[angeladunn.livejournal.com]

After reading both of your posts and plenty of replies left I think I've reached my point of view (partly) on this subject.


At first seeing the comparisons' all I could think was 'Aww MAN why???' But with the points that people have made on the David and the talk of the proportions for them being as small as they are, it does make sense.

But really, my view on this is I think it hits a lot of us, and me, definitely, on a more personal level than it being 'a conspiracy' or 'the media getting to us'.

I can only speak for myself here, but when I see figurines and girls being created/drawn/sculpted whatever as these tall elegant women I feel a pang in my chest out of jealousy. I'm a short girl, with muscles and any extra weight that I have can be seen more easily than a woman a few inches taller than me.

So, for me, this is a jealousy issue because I know I can't ever have a body that continues to be made for movies/magazines or figurines. Because I do think those figurines are beautiful. I love the classical paintings, those are absolutely gorgeous. But they both have one thing in common (and someone's pointed it out already, I'm sure):
To create a desired figure that most women couldn't acheive.

So, I just get jealous over these things.

[daphnep.livejournal.com]

I hear you, so loud and clear. I know all about the jealousy and body insecurities. The thing is, though, that makes this more absurd to me is that what we're looking at isn't simply a "figure that most women couldn't achieve", it's a figure that's not even human. NO woman can achieve it, because it's not anatomically possible. It's a distortion of an image that was itself (as another commenter reminded me) a distortion of a real figure.

And it's pathetic. Imagine for a second that beyond mere clumsiness, the model-maker here is a heterosexual male, and imagine he was sculpting out his fantasy woman. That makes me feel sad for him, because he's longing after something that he will never find, because it doesn't exist on earth. He can never be satisfied.

That's how far removed these figurines are from anything real. They're like comic-book art, or something. That's why I wanted to post them and mock them. That's why I want women with body-image issues, in particular, to see them, and to be able to realize how many times they're looking longingly after something that has no relation to them, it's like longing after (or being jealous of) a unicorn.

And then, hopefully, the next step would be looking realistically at what is real and possible, at good, healthy images (and GOOD ART) and being able to appreciate that for what it is. I guess we'll see.

[intricatevision.livejournal.com]

Alright, These were made one of two ways. They were either sculpted by hand and then made into molds for mass production Or sculpted on a 3d program and 'printed' using a 3d printer into a resin or wax model for production (the name of the machine escapes me).
I'm taking into account that curves actually look better in 3d that 2d, and I am also taking into account that the sculptors might just plain suck at sculpting. Especially if they are 3d modelers. All the good ones are working in house at a gaming studio or film studio somewhere. They could very well getting the bottom of the barrel. I don't believe that they cut out curves because they felt it looked wrong or off model. As the author said. They did it because it's what they felt was the best thing to do. Everyone gets so offended, then go do something about. I for instance, have a curvy and very unfinished sculpture sitting in my living room. I think I'll finish it, and get copies in resin. Maybe some of you should go to an art museum soon, stay away from the bad reproductions and buy the photographs instead.

[daphnep.livejournal.com]

Interesting...I don't know about the process, but I think you're right on when you say "All the good ones [3d modelers] are working in hourse at a gaming studio or film studio somewhere".

I think it's the full context that makes these less offensive...somewhere, someone made this. So what? No-one's seeing them. No-one's neccessarily buying them. They're not half as in-our-faces as many much more offensive things are, today.

[notrafficlights.livejournal.com]

I'm trying to figure out your post. Are you trying to suggest we, the consumers, the Fatties who live with this sort of bullshit everyday, don't know that yes, these non-innocent minions to the machine are just "doing their job" and the non-democratic capitalist economy which is well-known for creating markets for products out of thin - or mostly, fat - air, is just functioning as usual?

And then are you suggesting that this is okay? Or that we shouldn't criticise because... well, I can't figure out why, honestly. Your last paragraph was too vague for me to tell.

I'm sorry, I'm just not seeing any point to your post except, "It's not that bad, because it sells", or something. Which I've never accepted as an excuse, not when it was used as an excuse for perpetuating the already ingrained internalised-misogyny Twilight both preyed upon and validated in the screwed-up minds of millions of women, and especially not when it's about bastardising precious works of art, which nobody has the right to do, ever, unless they were the original creator, monstrous cellulite or no.

[daphnep.livejournal.com]

I'm saying that in this particular case, all the people messaging me and asking for the contact info for this company are wasting their outrage.

Those people (the ones wanting to write emails) were never gonna buy a statuette in the first place. What happens if I spread that contact info? The whole company is probably three guys with a contact in China and a small warehouse in NJ or somewhere: they open up the company email this morning and find 8000 emails of outrage from anonymous people on the internet. A moment of shock goes through the company. "What? Somebody is criticizing our product on some blog somewhere?"

Then, a funny thing happens...the week goes on, and sales of their products remain exactly the same as they were before. Because all those people who were outraged were never going to buy their products in the first place. Nobody cares if they ever do in the future, either.

It's like those pathetic "don't buy gas next Thursday" email "boycotts" that went around. The gas companies don't care, because all those millions of people forwarding the email are still going to be tanking up on Wednesday and Friday. The email does nothing but make people feel good...because they were able to ignore the real solution.

What I'm saying in a nutshell: businesses don't care what you say with your mouth, or in an email. They care how you spend your money. We all can get that now and use it our advantage (over any issue we care about), or we can send emails, if it makes us feel better...but that's all those emails will ever do.

[irishkate.livejournal.com]

well said in both blog entries.

I would give a longer reply but so many other commenters have been more eloquent and coherent than I could be.

It is a conspiracy - one we aid and abet every time we buy into it. It is like complaining that the media invades the privacy of people while sales of magazines with telephoto lens pictures of people sell off the racks. Entries like yours are useful to remind us of how ridiculous it can get - how far from fine art these models have gone.

[burntcopper.livejournal.com]

Where did you say these were likely to be sold? I'm more of the 'point and laugh' rather than 'outraged email' type.

mostly because I'm genuinely curious as to who would actually mistake these as any sort of reproduction - the Botticelli, specifically, since it's become like the Mona Lisa - instantly recognisable and a cultural shorthand. Especially the fashion/advertising industry, who've done plenty of shoots that recreate or re-imagine this. Yes, with stick-thin models who've been photoshopped to hell.

The main point and laugh/unrecognisable factor to the Botticelli is that the stick-thin photoshops bear more resemblance to the original, or at least the point of the original than this. Sure, they're unrealistic, impossible fantasy depictions. But they look like *adult women*. Or at least someone past their mid-teens. These reproductions, going by proportions, are pretty good representations of girls just hitting puberty. Which misses the point of Venus.

[daphnep.livejournal.com]

To answer your question: I don't know where they are likely to be sold. They were offered to me through an industry catalogue, and I declined. Which is, in large part, why I think the "outraged email" contigent is wasting their time. If someone sees them on a shelf, they can take it up with that retailer. Until then, it's simply an idea, and one that is likely to fail quietly all on its own.

You make me curious to seek out the fashion industry's re-interpretations of classic art...that would be an interesting comparison, indeed. And another good conversation. If you have any pictures you're thinking of easily available, would you mind sharing them?

[oxfordgirl.livejournal.com]

I was linked to the original post by blackcurrants before coming here. This one made me really stop and think, in addition to the comments giving me a cool piece of trivia about Michelangelo's David - thank you!

[csquaredtoo.livejournal.com]

Personally, i feel this is a sad commentary on how those elongated movie posters etc have changed what is considered "normal"

[daphnep.livejournal.com]

Yes, it is exactly that.