Le Sommeil [The Sleepers], which depicts two women entwined in a post-coital embrace, caused a stir when it was first shown in the 1870s. The police were called in, and the painting was not shown again until the 1980s. But its brief showing had an influence on a number of contemporary artists, and helped challenge the taboos associated with lesbian relationships. For modern audiences it’s a good reminder that people in the 19th century were not ignorant of lesbian relationships, as we tend to believe. And it’s pretty damn sexy, don’t you think?
They called the police on this lesbian painting.
The best part is, the lesbian embrace isn’t even the biggest thing that made the painting so controversial, it was the art style. People in the artistic community at the time were wholly familiar with sapphic relationships being portrayed in art, but were used to these scenes being portrayed in the ‘academic art’ style, which consisted of smooth, simplistic, idealised versions of the nude female form. This often went hand in hand with the depiction of Roman & Greek allegories to illustrate certain ideals (think Cabanel’s Birth of Venus). Courbet’s journey into realism was met by heavy critique from the academic movement, as the women he painted were, well, more realistic. Leaving in details such as the rolls of fat around the ribs acted as a blunt reminder to the audience that these were not euphoric goddesses caressing in ecstasy, but ordinary women having a nap together after making love. Other realist paintings suffered the same controversy, Manet’s Olympia is a perfect example, where the problem was not that the painting depicted a nude woman in an erotic pose, but the fact that she was just an ordinary courtesan, given an identity & portrayed in a place of power & control. Realism humanized the female form in art, & removed it from its previous role as a representation of the ideal.
So what disgusted people about the painting wasn’t so much that Le Sommeil depicted two women, but rather that it depicted two ‘real’ women.
I’ve been a huge yokai mood this october! Even though they’re from legends born on the opposite end of the globe, a good deal of yokai media tends to have a wonderful combination of spookiness, whimsy and cuteness that makes it a perfect fit for the season.
date a selkie, but don’t hide her cloak. let her go home and visit her family now and then, knowing that she’ll come back and hang her seal cloak in the closet like she always does. trust is important.
The first time she lets the redhead take her home, she’s diligent about hiding her cloak. She folds it carefully against tears and rips and abrasions, and hides it in a sea cave whose entrance is concealed by the tide.
She does the same, the second and third and fourth times, careful, wary, mindful of her mother’s lessons. Remembers the way her mother’s hands had chafed on her soft cheeks, rough with cooking and cleaning for her fisherman husband, the way her mother’s peat-dark eyes had been tense and harsh with the lesson.
“Mind me, Niahm. Never let them find your cloak.”
The way her mother’s mouth had curved, a sickle of dissatisfaction and relief and envy, as she had escaped into the waves.
So she minds her mother’s lesson, and she takes care with her cloak.
Would that she had taken as much care with her heart.
The fifth time, she wears the cloak to the girl’s door, clutched about her throat, dripping along the darkened lanes.
She enters the home, welcomed with soft kisses and gentle touches and kindling passion. She drapes the cloak, artful in her carelessness, across an old wooden chair, the one that creaks and tilts slightly if you don’t sit just right.
When she wakes, in the wee hours of the morning, even before her lover, the cloak still rests, supple and dappled by the sea, on the back of the chair.
She frowns into the softening dawn, dons the cloak, and returns to the sea.
And again, the sixth time. And the seventh.
The eighth time, she finally breaks, prickling and hurt with longing, gripping a handful of russet hair in her hand, firm with emphasis.
“Surely you know what I am,” she says to her lover, the cool froth of sea foam and the call of gulls curling around her voice.
“Of course,” her lover responds, soft and tender in the dawnlight, throat arched willingly, pale as the inner whorls of a shell. “You taste of the sea,” the girl whispers, reverently.
She shakes her lover’s head gently, fingers tangled still in russet locks. “Why?” she demands. “Why won’t you keep me?”
A long silence that waits and fills, like a tidepool, stretches between them. Cool as a current. Deep as the Channel.
Her lover’s eyes are dark and tender. “Must I trap you to keep you, my heart? Is that the shape of love that you desire?”
She sinks into the thought, struck and stymied, remembering her mother’s harsh hands, her cold eyes. Her hand eases into russet waves, caresses where her grip had punished. Her lips press cool and damp as the sea against the arching curve of her lover’s shoulder. “What shape of love will you give to me?”
The answer is easy, quick, certain. “Myself. Only myself, whenever you should wish it. Your cloak by the door, your body in my bed, and the freedom to go, whenever you must. As long as you wish.”
It’s not an answer a fisherman could ever give, nor would think to.
The ninth time, she hangs her cloak by the door, draped in careful dappled folds next to a drying oilskin jacket.
The Samsung campaign contains some very similar shots to the One 2 One set, even referencing some other Y2K visual motifs not present in that one such as the wide angle lens, brightly illuminated room, and metallic materials. However, the Samsung campaign more explicitly expresses the connection between the transparency in both the device and the clothing.
2018 Grinch has no edge. He’s got no bite. He’s not even that much of an asshole. He’s just a sassy gay furry with unusually nice teeth despite his famous theme song declaring otherwise.
1966 Grinch? Now that was a mean, scary bastard. He was a crusty old fuck who hated society so much that he only came off his shitty frozen mountain to commit crimes and terrorism out of spite.
Bennyhoo Cumberland Grinch comes down from his mountain to buy groceries.
You can round the edges off a character to make them more “relatable” or whatever, but you also run the risk of losing what defined them in the first place. The end result is bland and generic.
2018 Grinch is a reflection of modern society’s rejection of real character flaws in the interest of being “unproblematic” and in this essay i will
congrats OP this is literally the only grinch post i’ll ever reblog
There something fascinating in the iconic image of the lost cosmonauts, these odd skeletons in space suits . Sadness and mystery combine themselves in a perfect symbol of failure. I had to pay homage.
How could you forget the nasaghasts from Dr. McNinja?
sleepliving 