Schipperheyn's Thus Spoke Zarathustra


Newberry

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zarathustraEE.jpg

Hey,

My review for Peter's sculpture came out last month in the April edition of The New Individualist. After some weeks I can post it to my site, here is the link: http://michaelnewberry.com/av/zara/zara.html

And I must congratulate David Sims, TNI's art director, he is doing a super job in the layout of the images, and the magazine includes more images then on my site.

Also I have been on schedule for my monthly column, just finished the fourth one last night. The only way to see them first is by subscribing to the magazine. :)

Cheers,

Michael

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Okay, fine. Not only is this statue completely ick, but your critique is revealing.

My gut feeling was of being seventeen years old and coming to an important decision to act.

Big surprise. It's homoerotic.

All of us know the depressing quality of procrastination, the inability to follow through. Thus Spoke Zarathustra is the moment of coming to a resolution. Here we have a man who is forever springing up. He conveys what the Nike commercial recommends: Just Do It.

I do not know anything about procrastination, nor did Rand or any of her heroes. "Just do it" is a slogan appropriate for whim-worshippers, sexual deviants, child molesters, criminals.

The artist, Peter Schipperheyn, explains: “My figure could only be nude; the body is the ‘spirit’ clothed by flesh, creation conscious of itself, the moment between being and becoming.”

Platonic, practically Hegelian, gibberish to disguise the fact that Schipperheyn has a covert agenda.

Clothes in art are symbols identifying the subject’s time, nationality, and position in the world. They tell us about the subject... The nude figure is completely different. Once the artist removes the status symbols of clothes, we get to the truth of the human spirit. The artist must show us the meaning of the work—not tell us—through the sensual intimacy of body language and facial expression. We might say that we are seeing the figure’s psychology: how he is when alone with himself. The nude extends the range of knowledge about the person; we witness his intimate individuality.

And obviously you, too, have a covert agenda. Roark would never stand that way, tortured into "a tree limb, a limb pulled back" to be fondled by smirking perverts. Human dignity? Yeah, right.

I say follow the money. Who is Dame Murdoch and what's her agenda?

:D

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Mike,

He was serious.

Wolf,

All of your comments were gratuitous, mixed with maligning me, the sculptor, and Dame Murdock. I have already corrected you with facts on another thread, in which you accused me a being fraud. In real life, I don't give people like you the time of day. And I don't see why it should be different here.

I will request that MSK make you familiar with this site's posting guidelines.

Good day.

Michael

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I have interesting story to tell.

When I lived on the Island of Rhodes, there was this great Mediterranean taverna within the Medieval walls of old Rhodes (the walls were 14th Century). The owners were not Greek, but an Italian couple. They didn't serve Italian food, only foods from Greece, the East, and Africa. It was cheap and delicious, and they had developed a great following of local Greeks and the foreigners living on Rhodes.

One winter evening, I went there with friends, and the place was packed. One of my friends was a leading Byzantium archaeologist, but there were also in the taverna t about 5 other archaeologists, a great political cartoonist, a really good friend that was a jack of all trades: jewler, hotel owner, sculptor. These were all Greeks. But there was also some friends, collectors of mine, very wealthy, they had houses in Paris, Rome, and on Rhodes. Their only son, at 20 years old died in a swimming accent off the coast of Rhodes, and in is memoriam they created a Foundation for Art in his name.

Anyway, the jeweler sculptor friend was playing the guitar, and all the Greeks were singing. They sang songs from the times that modern Greeks were fighting for their independence. For me it was amazing to see this whole room come alive with good will and energy. An interesting note, is that the Greeks had a adopted a famous Verdi chorus song, The Jewish Slaves Chorus, a very famous tune. One of the Greek women there was a professional singer, and she and the rest of them blew this number away.

This evening had to be one of the greatest evenings I have ever had, and probably for many of them as well. Sitting amongst us was a German foreigner, who was living on Rhodes. After one of the songs the German guy turned to the sculptor playing the guitar and said very loudly in English "will you stop with that, I can't stand to hear you killing that guitar!"

The room went dead silent. Then the big man who was the Greek political cartoonist told the German, in crystal clear English, "get the fuck out of here!" The guitarist also had a few choice words for the German, in English and German!

The next thing that happened was that the Italian owners didn't want to see anyone get upset, and they were not going to tell the German to leave, so they spent a lot of time trying neutralize the situation, as if everyone was partly to blame. The German guy didn't leave, the atmosphere was dead, and people finished their wine then left.

But something changed, that taverna never again had a wonderful spontaneously night. All the Greeks that had been there never felt like going back again.

Michael

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Sorry to see this thing again. Can't stand it. I can relate to The David thematically and esthetically, not this overblown, overdone ^%=+^%R*&&*&^%%#$.

--Brant

zarathustraEE.jpg

Hey,

My review for Peter's sculpture came out last month in the April edition of The New Individualist. After some weeks I can post it to my site, here is the link: http://michaelnewberry.com/av/zara/zara.html

And I must congratulate David Sims, TNI's art director, he is doing a super job in the layout of the images, and the magazine includes more images then on my site.

Also I have been on schedule for my monthly column, just finished the fourth one last night. The only way to see them first is by subscribing to the magazine. :)

Cheers,

Michael

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That's a great story, Michael, but OL isn't a tavern full of wine drinking celebrants. What was the matter with those Greeks that they didn't beat the shit out of that German and throw him out themselves? No balls. That's why they didn't come back. It was a reminder that for all their singing and what not they had no balls! The German did. What a bunch of pussies! That's why American movies are so much better than European movies. Americans kick ass!

Wolf, that statue isn't homoerotic. It is only anatomically correct.

Posting guidelines?!! There should be a posting guideline about pics of this thing as far as I'm concerned! Ugh! If I owned it I'd use it for artillery practice! Up, down, right, left: Fire for effect!

--Brant

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I'm not very commercially minded. I'm very fortunate that I don't have to worry about money, but of course I have to be conscious that I have to only do the things that can be afforded. If you were to ask me what my income is, I couldn't tell you ... One perhaps feels slightly embarrassed with Rupert's commercial success. I suppose one's pleased that he does do so well, but what is more important to me is that my family are caring and useful citizens. That's the most - to my mind that's how you measure their success. My idea of greatness is not perhaps to be relatively successful in business, but it's whether they're really worthwhile human beings.

Lillian Rearden? Nope. Gail Wynand's Rupert Mudoch's mother.

Let's agree as follows: you live the way you want to live, I'll do the same, differently. We don't have to like each other. The world is a sufficiently big place to accommodate alternative lifestyles, jobs, newspapers, and aesthetic perspectives. I don't see Mallory's vision of the human spirit in Zarathustra. Do you?

W.

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Look, the problem about this statue is it's all about the penis. All the blather about its esthetic merits is merely a smokescreen. The artistic dishonesty is that the penis isn't erect! The artist participates with the critics in covering up the obvious. When a man archs his back like this he is orgasmically ejaculating. This is porn without the sex--or vice versa. IT'S A LIE! I hate lies!

--Brant

Edited by Brant Gaede
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Look, the problem about this statue is it's all about the penis. All the blather about its esthetic merits is merely a smokescreen. The artistic dishonesty is that the penis isn't erect! The artist participates with the critics in covering up the obvious. When a man archs his back like this he is orgasmically ejaculating. This is porn without the sex--or vice versa. IT'S A LIE! I hate lies!

--Brant

:lol: :lol: :lol:

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Look, the problem about this statue is it's all about the penis.

No, what it's closer to being "all about" is the hands.

Unlike you, I'm not sorry to "see this thing again."

Can't please 'em all.

Ellen___

Both Rand and Hugo knew hands. They didn't need the body--highly implied of course. The hand implies the mind! The penis on this statue needs the body. It's a lie. You can do hands alone. You can't do penis sans body or it's nothing! Why? Because hands reflect and imply THE MIND! The penis needs the body or it doesn't work; it's only a dildo--or a lie! But this penis isn't alone. It's flacid. In terms of ART it is therefore either a lie or nothing! Is it a lie? No? Okay. Excluded middle? Excluded middle is artistic failure! Get a hard on! That I'd respect!

Next!?

--Brant

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I suppose I am going to have to say something about this, but for the life of me, I can't get excited about it. Anyway, for the record:

1. I do not consider Zarathustra to be homoerotic in concept, but I certainly can see how it could appeal to gay men.

2. I agree that there is more emphasis on the schlong than is normal for classic nude males (there is even a straight line running from the head all the way down to the tip of the penis), but I have no problem with a sculpture of a muscular man who is also well hung. I have become fig-leaf weary and this is a welcome break.

3. I have tried and I simply cannot conceive of a eureka moment or one of ecstatic worship (which this pose transmits to me) causing an erection. I see nothing sexual in the pose at all. The emotions I capture are from a different side of the human spirit. I really like this work.

4. The idea of a person being revolted by homosexuals is a personal affair and should be kept personal.

5. I happen to agree with Wolf on one point: despite the fact that there are many gay Objectivists (and Objectivism-friendly people), Rand's express opinion was strongly against homosexuality. To pretend otherwise is not accurate.

6. I disagree with Wolf on his opinion of gay people, which I discern between the lines—and please correct me if I am wrong. I personally like gay people and have liked them for as long as I can remember (much to the dismay of my parents), although I am not gay and have never even experimented in that direction. I have always had a close friend or other who was gay.

7. Rand's low opinion of homosexuality transcended a bias (although the bias was there honking at times). She did not write about it, but I am pretty convinced that she would have defined her evaluation starting from metaphysics, from the law of identity. This is one of the few places in Rand where I discern a strong emphasis on the "animal" (the genus) and not "rational" (the differentia) in her definition of man, "rational animal." I am projecting, but I imagine her argument would be rooted on the simplistic A fits B variety and that's the way A and B are made (or that's "the given" to use the jargon). Therefore, using this as a premise, a healthy psychology should reflect the physical form of reproduction. (I have some mixed thoughts on this, but they are beyond the scope of this post.)

8. I believe Wolf likewise goes beyond a simple bias or homophobia. Rand took the metaphysical idea of male being biologically stronger than female, the penetrator, etc., as a premise and extended it to justify her view that a woman president would by necessity have a flawed, therefore suspect, psychology. In this sense, Rand thought that men and women had a different metaphysical nature.

I have seen this approach extended in Wolf's work to the point of him claiming that men and women have different moral natures. It's novel and something to think about. Since ethics rests on metaphysics and epistemology, if the different metaphysical nature premise is accepted, his conclusion about different moral natures is a perfectly logical extension. This inevitably, by a logical extension from the premise, falls off into objecting to homosexuality on philosophical grounds. I think the issue is more complex and such a conclusions rests on an oversimplified view of human nature, but this is also for another discussion.

9. As to my own thinking about the sexes, I have not yet sorted out the issue in my own mind other than a general live and let live attitude. I judge people by what they say and do that has some kind of meaning in my life, not by what sexual orientation they have (which I think is their business).

10. I get the impression (and please correct me if I am wrong) that Wolf's real objection in this discussion is not against homosexuals per se, not even against Michael as a person or artist, but against the idea of presenting Romantic art in a form that might display homoerotic nuances and claiming intellectual root or influence in Objectivism. And I get the impression that this goes beyond a personal opinion—that his objection is that this does not reflect Rand's vision, nor the vision he responded to in his youth when he first picked up a Rand novel—and that the heroic as Rand conceived it is not being accurately portrayed.

These are just thoughts off the top of my head. I enjoyed Michael's story about the Greek merry-makers and the German spoil-sport. I don't know why spoil-sports like to spoil the pleasure of others, but I have seen it often enough to know it is common. They must do it because they like it.

btw - If those Greeks were not able to recover their joyful spirit, shame on them. They allowed something that should only come from within themselves to become mixed with something from without. That is way too fragile to serve as a basis of behavior for lasting human happiness. A spoil-sport might make me want to spit for a while, but I always get back to my high on life.

There is another issue with this story. I am having difficulty adapting it in my mind to a public discussion forum on philosophy where ideas are supposed to be taken seriously and dissected. The story is a general fit, but a poor one. In a party, people are supposed to conform. On a philosophy discussion forum, people are supposed to disagree. That's what checking premises is all about.

As to fanatics, we have had racists and bigots appear on OL at times and I think it is a damn shame. Anti-homosexual bias can easily fall off into bigotry, too. If I thought this was all that was at issue, I would have done something about it. But I think the waters run deeper here and something important, however inconvenient, is being brought to light. I see no value in stepping around a difficult problem just to be politically correct.

I hope this attitude of mine does not offend my homosexual friends as I hold each one dear. And I hope this discussion does not turn into simple bigotry or hatred on any side. We are discussing art, the nature of art, what represents the heroic in art, etc. I see the homosexuality issue being filtered through that lens, not through the lens of gay-bashing.

A quip just came to mind (this noggin of mine never stops), but I will refrain from popping out with it. This is a serious and sensitive issue. I have high hopes that this can be a productive discussion.

Michael

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All of this thread has been interesting.

When I committed to writing an art column for TNI, I wanted to start off with a very limited focus: pick one work, review it, and then take things from there. I was concerned not to take on a commitment I couldn't honor. But the process is working well, I have plenty of time to do my own work.

Of my other current and forthcoming reviews, one artist paints his wife and children in everyday scenes: reading a book, hanging the laundry, going swimming--I don't recall him doing nudes. rose.jpg Larson

The other artist paints landscapes, still-lifes, interiors, self-portraits, and nudes, male and female. drawingpainting01.jpgCollins

The fourth artist paints predominately urban landscapes. gas%20copy.jpg Wray

Schipperheyn sculpts mostly woman, often in monumental marble nudes. Asleep_copy.gif Asleep, Schipperheyn

Schipperheyn would probably agree with me that Zarathustra is his most important work. And a few times he has complimented me on my insights on the review.

It never has occurred to me to speculate about an artist's sexual preferences, perhaps because most great artists, artists in general, and anyone in art school simply paints and draws both sexes. And they usually do them equally bad or well depending on their skill. It is rare to see an artist paint awesome women, and horrible men, or vice versa. There are some exceptions to this, Michelangelo used male models for his female figures. It is a point of honor for artists to paint or sculpt both sexes equally well. I think all of the discussion about gay stuff because of male nude, to be...well...sophomoric, and belies the ignorance of art making.

BTW,sexual art, either hetero- or homoerotic, is really literally so. Those works are explicit in sexual scenes. For example, the S and M mistress cracking the whip on her partner, etc.

From my own experience with collectors buying my large nudes, there have been heterosexual males that have bought male nudes, and heterosexual women have bought female nudes. This is a fact in my experience--the furthest I have thought about its that the collector may see themselves in the image painted.

Also in my experience of selling hundreds of works, I have never been able to speculate what anyone is attracted to the works, until they tell me. So I find it incredibly weird that anyone would think they would understand what gays or anyone else would or would not like in art, as if they are all one and the same.

If it had occurred to me that rampant speculation, fixation on penises, thoughtless comments, and arguments from the perspective of what one likes or does not like would come about because of reviewing a solitary male nude, I would have made sure to include a balance of Schipperheyn's works. A lesson learned.

Ellen commented: "Can't please 'em all."

Ain't that the truth.

One last point. The audience that I am directing the reviews towards are intelligent, they know their fields, and they are interested in art and values they may glean from it by seeing it in new ways.

Michael

www.michaelnewberry.com

Edited by Newberry
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Schipperheyn would probably agree with me that Zarathustra is his most important work. And a few times he has complimented me on my insights on the review.

Do you know if there are any additional images of Zarathustra that have been posted since our initial discussion? I'd still like to see different angles and details. As I said in our original conversation, I think seeing it from above would probably give me a greater appreciation of it.

It never has occurred to me to speculate about an artist's sexual preferences, perhaps because most great artists, artists in general, and anyone in art school simply paints and draws both sexes. And they usually do them equally bad or well depending on their skill. It is rare to see an artist paint awesome women, and horrible men, or vice versa.

I disagree. An artist may be able to accurately record the mere physical proportions of males and females equally well, but I've seen artworks in which I've strongly suspected that the artists who created them were gay because their images of men had a certain life force or magic that their images of women lacked, especially when the artworks contained erotic themes. I've seen images of women who were supposed to be sexy, but in looking at them, I thought to myself that they looked more like an outsider's vision of what he thought a straight man would find alluring. I got the impression that the artists didn't -- couldn't -- feel for their women what their straight male characters were supposed to be feeling. In some cases I've specifically asked about the artists' orientations to see if my suspicions were correct. They were.

In addition to that, I think that there are subtle stylistic and proportional characteristics that gay men are more likely to use in their art than straight men. It may surprise some people, but I'm not talking about how genitalia are rendered, but the details of things like hands, feet, fingers and toes. There are also color temperatures which seem to appeal more to gays than to straights.

It might be interesting to explore this issue further with illustrated examples. I'll have to think about it a little more.

There are some exceptions to this, Michelangelo used male models for his female figures. It is a point of honor for artists to paint or sculpt both sexes equally well. I think all of the discussion about gay stuff because of male nude, to be...well...sophomoric, and belies the ignorance of art making.

I don't think that speculating about an artist's possible sexual orientation and the influence that it may have had on his art is any less valid, or any more sophomoric, than speculating about his "sense of life," or trying to detect his "metaphysical value-judgments." I think it's odd that anyone who believes that we can know something as complex and personal as an artist's "world view" or "essential view of existence" by looking at one of his paintings believes that we wouldn't also be able to recognize clues about the his sexual orientation.

BTW,sexual art, either hetero- or homoerotic, is really literally so. Those works are explicit in sexual scenes. For example, the S and M mistress cracking the whip on her partner, etc.

I agree that Schipperheyn's sculpture isn't erotic, despite the emphasis on the chorizo y huevos. I tend to agree with Brant's view that there's a bit of a contradiction in the artist (perhaps unintentionally) having placed so much emphasis on the erogenous zone of a figure which is not erotic.

There's definitely an in-your-face aggressiveness to it that I'm surprised to see you, Michael, of all people, apparently dismissing. Are we not to consider the visual and symbolic evidence contained in a work of art? The penis is the male sex organ. Shoving it into viewers faces is unavoidably going to have sexual connotations on a visceral level. Btw, I don't see the issue as being based in homophobia, at least as far as my own personal response to the art is concerned. As a hetero male, I have the same reaction to certain works of art which contain female forms. Some of your friend Martine Vaugel's sculptures are good examples which I think place a little too much emphasis on the vagina. Check out the Figures IV and Figures V sections at her website.

If it had occurred to me that rampant speculation, fixation on penises, thoughtless comments, and arguments from the perspective of what one likes or does not like would come about because of reviewing a solitary male nude, I would have made sure to include a balance of Schipperheyn's works. A lesson learned.

So, an artist dangles a figure's penis in everyone's faces while largely hiding the figure's face, and you think that their recognizing the emphasis and commenting on it is a "fixation"? Heh. Once in a while, out of the blue, my younger brother's screwball college roommate used to do his imitation of a brown-eyed cyclops. I image that if you had been unfortunate enough to witness it, you'd have been perplexed as to why the rest of us were "fixated" on having been able to see his small intestines rather than commenting on the color of his socks.

J

[edit:] In looking up thread, I see that a few of the comments were indeed thoughtless and inappropriate.

Edited by Jonathan
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Jonathan,

Could you manage to do this with your computer-image wizardry?:

Doctor the photo:

(1) extend the top of it -- i.e., the space between the top of the statue's head and the top of the image -- a bit;

(2) delete, changing into uniform background color, the artist on the ladder -- with the position of his hand, given where he's posed, drawing the eye to the penis -- and the bookshelf and the window, the "line" across the top of which again draws the eye to the penis.

I wonder if that would change the impression of those who find the statue penis-dominated. (I don't find it thus, didn't from my first view of it when Michael first posted it.)

Ellen

___

Edited by Ellen Stuttle
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Jonathan,

Could you manage to do this with your computer-image wizardry?:

Doctor the photo:

(1) extend the top of it -- i.e., the space between the top of the statue's head and the top of the image -- a bit;

(2) delete, changing into uniform background color, the artist on the ladder -- with the position of his hand, given where he's posed, drawing the eye to the penis -- and the bookshelf and the window, the "line" across the top of which again draws the eye to the penis.

I wonder if that would change the impression of those who find the statue penis-dominated. (I don't find it thus, didn't from my first view of it when Michael first posted it.)

Ellen

___

Sure, when I get a little time later, I'll isolate the figure. But keep in mind that my opinion that the genitals are emphasized is also based on some of the other views that are available online:

http://www.users.bigpond.com/schip/zarathu.htm

(scroll to the bottom of the page)

If it were a painting showing only the angle that we see in the photo that Michael included in this thread's initial post, I'd agree that there would be less emphasis on the bits than there appears to be when viewed in the round. But since it's a sculpture, I can't help viewing it as one.

J

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