I have been receiving questions about my work. I would like to try to answer them - but the basic subject matter - ART (at least from my point of view), is a huge one and tangents are inevitable.

You can call this part of my site René the Tour Guide.

The beauty of the web site format is that you can deal with tangents without seeming to ramble. As our discussion broadens and specific topics arise, I will simply create key words and readers/participants can go immediately and cleanly into that areaand then come back to the more general discussion.

I hope my responses will invite further questions and/or commentsIn fact, I need specific questions to push me to explore specific elements of my work.

The goal (my goal) is to pinpoint and better define the impulse(s) behind this work that I do.

The cliché says: "a picture is worth a 1000 words." But which of those words are the most precise? That can be a mystery to someone like me someone who expresses himself through images. I have no problem coming up with ideas and concepts for photographs. But they are visual ideas and concepts. In terms of the why? and the wherefore? of these pictures I make, I would like to go beyond generalities in articulating my purpose.

In many ways, this exercise will be as much for my own self and/or artistic awareness as it may be for your curiosity.

(Voilà!a potentially huge area to be explored right there: Is there a difference between self awareness and artistic awareness? And especially when the focus point is the Erotic?)

Post your questions. Let,s see where they take us (me). And thanks for your interest.

René De Carufel

Ques.1
In the medium of photography, what are the characteristics that allow the female nude to be accepted as art?

How would you define art?
What are the differences between photographing and painting (and other forms of medium interpretation) the nude female figure?
How and why does it affect the subject?

René:
First, I believe that any creative activity and its result can be Art, although of course people usually refer to traditional domains of activity such as music, painting, etc...Then come in more relative values concerning the creative act: aesthetic values (what is beautiful to one person may be ugly to another); expression and impression of the content (which may or may not be felt by the viewer); finally the message itself - social, emotional, etc...With such a definition taking a photograph creatively is definitely Art.

Depending on the subject matter, different values will be associated with the image. This will always be relative. You seem quite concerned with the female nude. It is true that I am more interested in the female nude although I have also done some very nice male nudes. But I believe you do best what you love most. Someone like Robert Mapplethorpe, a great photographer, preferred male.

Don't forget it is not the nude that is Art but the medium and its evocative power. So there is no essential need to compare painting and photography - they are just two means of expression.

Ques 2: What do you feel defines photographic (nude) art from pornography?

René:
The difference between artistic nude photography and pornography is difficult. For consumers it is a Social Issue. The Social Issue creates the question. Pornography could be Art, but it rarely is; although in the old days the Indian Kama-Sutra illustrations did a pretty good job at it. Then again, in those "old days" the societal concept of Art was nowhere near as pre-eminent as it is today. Kama Sutra was a Religious concept. The images went straight to the idea of honoring the Divine via the physical body. There is something "private" about pornography in terms of how and where it is consumed; the Kama Sutra images were depicted on the temple walls. Obviously that society had no problem with it

In our current western society, Pornography is generally crude commercially exploitative images of one or more persons depicting sexual activity. Personally, I don't see much creativity there. And the word is just too negative now and refers only to that commercial exploitation, so let's dump it.

Still, Society is hyper-aware of the power of the image and demands that the Photographer explain and/or justify the work. So I will say: Erotic Photographic Art would be artwork with sexual evocation and that is not to be neglected since sex is such a big part of our existence.

By contrast, Pornography is nude photography with more literalized sex in it. How much more is the interesting question

Enough to push the image over Society,s undefined line dividing the Erotic from the Pornographic. ("I don't know what Art is, but I know it when I see it." This cliché also applies to Pornography.)

For a photographer who is not just catering to the consuming market it,s a matter of reacting to impulses, making images that speak to and of those impulses, and creating a coherent aesthetic that leaves no visual doubt as to the difference between the Erotic and the Pornographic.

The hard part (at least for this photographer) is articulating that visual difference. Because an Aesthetic contains so many different personal elements which a photographer, as a member of Society, must try to sort out if he really wants to "know" his work. (And why Society is saying those things about him.)

Somebody ask me a question that forces me to go to the emotional aspects

Ques.3: What is your ethos (other than wanting to take beautiful pictures) and how do you stand politically?

Rene:
I have been doing nudes for many years now. I have evolved from purely aesthetic considerations to looking for sensitive erotic emotions in my photographs.

(Push me a little harder with a more specific question - I will try to find a more detailed response.)

Ques. 4: Part of my concern these days is with the question "What is "erotic" and how do people view the usage of this word?" For me, I have great problems putting my work into the "erotic" category because of the negative connotations in a public sphere. I wondered what your views on this would be...

René:
You are right: for some people, the word has a negative connotation; but it does not for me and I can not think of a better word to qualify the sexually evocative content of a photograph or anything else. Because the word is directly related to the mythical character Eros, who is Psyche,s lover. Those two are a couple. They always have been and always will be

Of course in my case, the primary attribute of my artistic photographs is the erotic element. Pornography is erotic but hardly artistic. If that sounds "snobby", well (See Ques.2) I think art can carry any message including an erotic one.