Wednesday, September 30, 2009

Mucha



I'm a big believer in Art Nouveau. Everything's pastel with clean lines and nice thick black outlines.

But as much as I love him, Alphonse Mucha gets under my skin.

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Don't get me wrong, who doesn't love a stupid psychedelic Mucha poster in their fresher dorms or perhaps Absinthe makes the heart grow fonder.

But have you noticed those women? Come on. It's like every painting is a personification of "HELLO I'M FERTILE IN ALL THE RIGHT PLACES." Then people have the gall to tell me that Mucha painted real women and demonstrates a truer form. Uh fuck that. Where's the little pudge and cellulite? Everything's curvy and smooth and luxurious.


Then there's me again. At my high weight, I become somewhat of a pear.... with strange things occurring to my arms as if to say "Hello! Someone tried to give me wings but gave me fat flippers instead!" I want to ask Mucha why I don't have a buxom bosom to round out a curvasous ass. Thanks Alphonse, I'm pretty sure you just pasted 5 different women together to make one print.

Early photoshop ladies and gentlemen.

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I guess I'm talking about this because I don't feel pretty. Again. I don't feel fat. I know I'm not fat. I mean, of course things could be tucked and slimmed and lasered away, but I'm under no impression that I look the way I did 45 pounds ago.

And if I know I'm not fat, why do I still care what I weigh? Why have I obsessed over converting kJ into calories when thoughtless brands don't list it? I walk around and feel like a shell of myself. It's not a terrible thing, just something different, I suppose. My clothes don't fit, my hair won't stop falling out, my skin is more bipolar than I am... but I glance at myself in shop windows and can truthfully say:

"There's no way I can get my thighs to touch even if I tried."

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Maybe I'm not even afraid of getting fat. I didn't look horrible 10, 20, 30 pounds ago. But there were little flaws, tiny details about myself that I noticed when no one else did. I had to pick at the metaphorical scabs until they were gone... knowing full well my wounds would scar and I would still be unhappy.

I don't have a stomach anymore... but I don't have anything else either. And I can pad and prod to make myself appear more shapely, but in the end, haven't I been saying this whole thing was for myself? I can see the facade. What's left from all I've chipped away and broken off.

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Generally, things get scapegoated on rather broad and untouchable people or objects to divert from the raw truth of the matter. I can stare at every painting or magazine cover shoot and wish for fragmented pieces of various girls to put together to make myself a new whole. Blame society for causing my insecurities. Chastise men for their unrealistic expectations.

But other people can see the same things I do, and--at the end of the day--peacefully walk away from it all. I can't let go of the obsession with myself.

Why can one look at art, commissioned decades or centuries past, and only see a reflection of her flawed self? What is it about beauty that is so offensive?

5 comments:

ruby said...

i'm sure i'm not the first person to say this, but your posts are so beautifully and brilliantly written. it's a treat to read them because it's as if you take thoughts i've had but articulate them in ways i would never have imagined.

you're so gorgeous, inside and out

what if summer... said...

i wouldn't say that all beauty is offensive, but i'm sure you just meant that other beautiful women are offensive. i agree with you, strangely. i like to look at beautiful women no matter how lanky or curvy, but something in me becomes quite bitter. it's like we're programmed to be competitive with other women so we can nab that rich doctor husband before they do. as if the approval and acceptance of a man is all that keeps us alive. at a base evolutionary level it makes sense, but come on, we're in the 21st century...
ugh.

speaking of art, have you checked out my student art blog? (subscribe so i feel like you care!)
ha ha ha

i hope all is well in jolly england!

Ana's Girl said...

Omg you're so right about the artwork. i really couldn't agree with your rant more. Were you reading my mind again?

mais said...

what you said is exactly what's in my head and what i tried to write about yesterday and couldn't quite get it out. so thank you. :D

Unknown said...

I always find your posts hit the nail right on top of the head.
It reminds me of something I read the other day...
"Is beauty hideous?"
In so many ways trying to become beautiful makes us into something hideous.
I think I went off on a tangent there, said something a tad unrelated, but yeah. Those are my thoughts.

 
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