Ultracrepidarian

Ultracrepidarian (pronounced uhl-truh-krep-i-dair-ee-uhn)

Of or pertaining to a person who criticizes, judges, or gives advice outside their area of expertise

1819: An English adaptation of the historic words sūtor, ne ultra crepidam, uttered by the Greek artist Apelles and reported by the Pliny the Elder.  Translating literally as “let the shoemaker venture no further” and sometimes cited as ne supra crepidam sūtor judicare, the translation something like “a cobbler should stick to shoes”.  From the Latin, ultra is beyond, sūtor is cobbler and crepidam is accusative singular of crepida (from the Ancient Greek κρηπίς (krēpís)) and means sandal or sole of a shoe.  Ultracrepidarian is a noun & verb and ultracrepidarianism is a noun; the noun plural is ultracrepidarians.  For humorous purposes, forms such as ultracrepidarist, ultracrepidarianish, ultracrepidarianize & ultracrepidarianesque have been coined; all are non-standard.

Ultracrepidarianism describes the tendency among some to offer opinions and advice on matters beyond their competence.  The word entered English in 1819 when used by English literary critic and self-described “good hater”, William Hazlitt (1778–1830), in an open letter to William Gifford (1756–1826), editor of the Quarterly Review, a letter described by one critic as “one of the finest works of invective in the language” although another suggested it was "one of his more moderate castigations" a hint that though now neglected, for students of especially waspish invective, he can be entertaining; the odd quote from him would certainly lend a varnish of erudition to trolling.  Ultracrepidarian comes from a classical allusion, Pliny the Elder (circa 24-79) recording the habit of the famous Greek painter Apelles (a fourth century BC contemporary of Alexander the Great (Alexander III of Macedon, 356-323 BC)), to display his work in public view, then conceal himself close by to listen to the comments of those passing.  One day, a cobbler paused and picked fault with Apelles’ rendering of sandals and the artist immediately took his brushes and pallet and touched-up the errant straps.  Encouraged, the amateur critic then let his eye wander above the ankle and suggested how the leg might be improved but this Apelles rejected, telling him to speak only of shoes and otherwise maintain a deferential silence.  Pliny hinted the artist's words of dismissal may not have been polite.

So critics should comment only on that about which they know.  The phrase in English is usually “cobbler, stick to your last” (a last a shoemaker’s pattern, ultimately from a Germanic root meaning “to follow a track'' hence footstep) and exists in many European languages: zapatero a tus zapatos is the Spanish, schoenmaker, blijf bij je leest the Dutch, skomager, bliv ved din læst the Danish and schuster, bleib bei deinen leisten, the German.  Pliny’s actual words were ne supra crepidam judicaret, (crepidam a sandal or the sole of a shoe), but the idea is conveyed is in several ways in Latin tags, such as Ne sutor ultra crepidam (sutor means “cobbler”, a word which survives in Scotland in the spelling souter).  The best-known version is the abbreviated tag ultra crepidam (beyond the sole), and it’s that which Hazlitt used to construct ultracrepidarian.  Crepidam is from the Ancient Greek κρηπίς (krēpís) and has no link with words like decrepit or crepitation (which are from the Classical Latin crepare (to creak, rattle, or make a noise)) or crepuscular (from the Latin word for twilight); crepidarian is an adjective rare perhaps to the point of extinction meaning “pertaining to a shoemaker”.

The related terms are "Nobel disease" & "Nobel syndrome" which are used to describe some of the opinions offered by Nobel laureates on subjects beyond their specialization.  In some cases this is "demand" rather than "supply" driven because, once a prize winner is added to a media outlet's "list of those who comment on X", if they turn out to give answers which generate audience numbers, controversy or clicks, they become "talent" and may be asked questions about matters of which they know little.  This happens because some laureates in the three "hard" prizes (physics, chemistry, physiology or medicine) operate in esoteric corners of their discipline; asking a particle physicist something about plasma physics on the basis of their having won the physics prize may not elicit useful information.  Of course those who have won the economics gong or one of what are now the DEI (diversity, equity and inclusion) prizes (peace & literature) may be assumed to have helpful opinions on everything.

Jackson Pollock (1912-1956): Blue Poles

Number 11 (Blue poles, 1952), Oil, enamel and aluminum paint with glass on canvas.

In 1973, when a million dollars was a still lot of money, the NGA (National Gallery of Australia), a little controversially, paid Aus$1.3 million for Jackson Pollock’s (1912-1956) Number 11, 1952, popularly known as Blue Poles since it was first exhibited in 1954, the new name reputedly chosen by the artist.  It was some years ago said to be valued at up to US$100 million but, given the increase in the money supply (among the rich who trade this stuff) over the last two decades odd, that estimate may now be conservative although the suggestion in 2016 the value may have inflated to as much as US$350 million was though to be "on the high side".  Blue Poles emerged during Pollock’s "drip period" (1947-1950), a method which involved techniques such throwing paint at a canvas spread across the floor.  The art industry liked these (often preferring the more evocative term "action painting") and they remain his most popular works, although at this point, he abandoned the dripping and moved to his “black porings phase” a darker, simpler style which didn’t attract the same commercial interest.  He later returned to more colorful ways but his madness and alcoholism worsened; he died in a drink-driving accident.

Alchemy (1947), Oil, aluminum, alkyd enamel paint with sand, pebbles, fibres, and broken wooden sticks on canvas.

Although the general public remained uninterested (except in the price tags) or sceptical, there were critics, always drawn to a “troubled genius”, who praised Pollock’s work and the industry approves of any artist who (1) had the decency to die young and (2) produced lots of stuff which can sell for millions.  US historian of art, curator & author Helen A Harrison (b 1943; director (1990-2024) of the Pollock-Krasner House and Study Center, the former home and studio of the Abstract Expressionist artists Jackson Pollock and Lee Krasner in East Hampton, New York) is an admirer, noting the “pioneering drip technique…” which “…introduced the notion of action painting", where the canvas became the space with which the artist actively would engage”.  As a thumbnail sketch she offered:

Number 14: Gray (1948), Enamel over gesso on paper.

“Reminiscent of the Surrealist notions of the subconscious and automatic painting, Pollock's abstract works cemented his reputation as the most critically championed proponent of Abstract Expressionism. His visceral engagement with emotions, thoughts and other intangibles gives his abstract imagery extraordinary immediacy, while his skillful use of fluid pigment, applied with dance-like movements and sweeping gestures that seldom actually touched the surface, broke decisively with tradition. At first sight, Pollock's vigorous method appears to create chaotic labyrinths, but upon close inspection his strong rhythmic structures become evident, revealing a fascinating complexity and deeper significance.  Far from being calculated to shock, Pollock's liquid medium was crucial to his pictorial aims.  It proved the ideal vehicle for the mercurial content that he sought to communicate 'energy and motion made visible - memories arrested in space'.”

Number 13A: Arabesque (1948), Oil and enamel on canvas.

Critics either less visionary or more fastidious seemed often as appalled by Pollock’s violence of technique as they were by the finished work (or “products” as some labelled the drip paintings), questioning whether any artistic skill or vision even existed, one finding them “…mere unorganized explosions of random energy, and therefore meaningless.”  The detractors used the language of academic criticism but meant the same thing as the frequent phrase of an unimpressed public: “That’s not art, anyone could do that.”

Number 1, 1949 (1949), Enamel and metallic paint on canvas. 

There have been famous responses to  “That’s not art, anyone could do that” but Ms Harrison's was practical, offering people the opportunity to try.  To the view that “…people thought it was arbitrary, that anyone can fling paint around”, Ms Harrison conceded it was true anybody could “fling paint around” but that was her point, anybody could, but having flung, they wouldn’t “…necessarily come up with anything” by which she meant the wouldn't necessarily come up with anything of which the critical establishment (a kind of freemasonry of the art business) would approve (ie could put a price tag on).

Helen A Harrison, The Jackson Pollock Box (Cider Mill Press, 96pp, ISBN-10:1604331860, ISBN-13:978-1604331868).

In 2010, Ms Harrison released The Jackson Pollock Box, a kit which, in addition to an introductory text, included paint brushes, drip bottles and canvases so people could do their own flinging and compare the result against a Pollock.  After that, they may agree with collector Peggy Guggenheim (1898-1979) that Pollock was “...the greatest painter since Picasso” or remain unrepentant ultracrepidarians.  Of course, many who thought their own eye for art quite well-trained didn't agree with Ms Guggenheim.  In 1945, just after the war, Duff Cooper (1890–1954), then serving as Britain's ambassador to France, came across Pablo Picasso (1881–1973) leaving an exhibition of paintings by English children aged 5-10 and in his diary noted the great cubist saying he "had been much impressed".  "No wonder" added the ambassador, "the pictures are just as good as his".

Dresses & drips: Three photographs by Cecil Beaton (1904-1980), shot for a three-page feature in Vogue (March 1951) titled American Fashion: The New Soft Look which juxtaposed Pollock’s paintings hung in New York’s Betty Parsons Gallery with the season’s haute couture by Irene (1872-1951) & Henri Bendel (1868-1936).

Beaton choose the combinations of fashion and painting; pairing Lavender Mist (1950, left) with a short black ball gown of silk paper taffeta with large pink bow at one shoulder and an asymmetrical hooped skirt best illustrates the value of his trained eye.  Critics and social commentators have always liked these three pages, relishing the opportunity to comment on the interplay of so many of the clashing forces of modernity: the avant-garde and fashion, production and consumption, abstraction and representation, painting and photography, autonomy and decoration, masculinity and femininity, art and commerce.  Historians of art note it too because it was the abstract expressionism of the 1940s which was both uniquely an American movement and the one which in the post-war years saw the New York supplant Paris as the centre of Western art.  There have been interesting discussions about when last it could be said Western art had a "centre".

Blue Poles, upside down.

Although the suggestion might offend the trained and discerning eyes of art critics, it’s doubtful that for ultracrepidarians the experience of viewing Blue Poles would much be different were it to be hung upside down.  Fortunately, the world does have a goodly stock of art critics who can explain that while Pollock did more than once say his works should be interpreted “subjectively”, their intended orientation is a part of the whole and an inversion would change the visual dynamics and gravitational illusions upon which the abstraction effects depend would be changed.  It would still be a painting but, in a sense, not the one the artist painted.  Because the drip technique involved “flinging and poring paint” onto a canvas spread across a studio’s floor, there was not exactly a randomness in where the paint landed but physics did mean gravity exerted some pull (in flight and on the ground), lending layers and rivulets what must be a specific downward orientation.  Thus, were the work to be hung inverted, what was in the creative process a downward flow would be seen as “flowing uphill” as it were.  The compositional elements which lent the work its name were course the quasi-vertical “poles” placed at slight angles and its these which are the superstructure which “anchor” the rest of the drips and, being intrinsically “directional”, they too have a “right way up”.  There is in the assessment of art the “eye of the beholder” but although it may be something they leave unstated, most critics will be of the “some eyes are more equal than others” school.

Mondrian’s 1941 New York City 1 as it (presumably correctly) sat in the artist's studio in 1944 (left) and as it was since 1945 exhibited (upside-down) in New York and Düsseldorf (right).  Spot the difference.

So although ultracrepidarians may not “get it” (even after digesting the critics’ explanations) and wouldn’t be able to tell whether or not it was hung correctly, that’s because they’re philistines.  In the world of abstract art however, even the critics can be fooled: in 2022, it was revealed a work in Piet Mondrian’s (1872-1944) 1941 New York City 1 series had for 77 years been hanging upside down.  First in exhibited in 1945 in New York’s MOMA (Museum of Modern Art), the piece was created with multi-colored adhesive paper tape and, in an incorrect orientation, it has since 1980 hung in the Düsseldorf Museum as part of the Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen’s collection.  The decades-long, trans-Atlantic mistake came to light during a press conference held to announce the Kunstsammlung’s new Mondrian exhibition and the conclusion was the error may have been caused by something as simple as the packing-crate being overturned or misleading instructions being given to the staff.  1941 New York City 1 will remain upside because of the condition of the adhesive strips.  “The adhesive tapes are already extremely loose and hanging by a thread” a curator was quoted as saying, adding that if it were now to be turned-over, “…gravity would pull it into another direction.  And it’s now part of the work’s story.”  Mondrian was one of the more significant theorists of abstract art and its withdrawal from nature and natural subjects.  “Denaturalization” he proclaimed to be a milestone in human progress, adding: “The power of neo-plastic painting lies in having shown the necessity of this denaturalization in painterly terms... to denaturalize is to abstract... to abstract is to deepen.”  Now even ultracrepidarians can understand.

Eye of the beholder: Portrait of Lindsay Lohan in the style of Claude Monet (1840–1926) at craiyon.com and available at US$26 on an organic cotton T-shirt made in a factory powered by renewable energy.

Whether the arguments about what deserves to be called “art” began among prehistoric “artists” and their critics in caves long ago isn’t known but it’s certainly a dispute with a long history.  In the sense it’s a subjective judgment the matter was doubtless often resolved by a potential buyer declining to purchase but during the twentieth century it became a contested topic and there were celebrated exhibits and squabbles which for decades played out before, in the post modern age, the final answer appeared to be something was art if variously (1) the creator said it was or (2) an art critic said it was or (3) it was in an art gallery or (4) the price tag was sufficiently impressive.

So what constitutes “art” is a construct of time, place & context which evolves, shaped by historical, cultural, social, economic, political & personal influences, factors which in recent years have had to be cognizant of the rise of cultural equivalency, the recognition that Western concepts such as the distinction between “high” (or “fine”) art and “folk” (or “popular”) art can’t be applied to work from other traditions where cultural objects are not classified by a graduated hierarchy.  In other words, everybody’s definition is equally valid.  That doesn’t mean there are no longer gatekeepers because the curators in institutions such as museums, galleries & academies all discriminate and thus play a significant role in deciding what gets exhibited, studied & promoted, even though few would now dare to suggest what is art and what is not: that would be cultural imperialism.

Eye of the prompt 1.0: An AI (artificial intelligence) generated portrait of Lindsay Lohan by ChatGPT imagined in "drip painting style", this one using an interpretation which overlaid "curated drips" over "flung paint".  This could be rendered using Ms Harrison's Jackson Pollock Box but would demand some talent.

In the twentieth century, it seemed to depend on artistic intent, something which transcended a traditional measure such as aesthetic value but as the graphic art in advertising and that with a political purpose such as agitprop became bigger, brighter and more intrusive, such forms also came to be regarded as art or at least worth of being studied or exhibited on the same basis, in the same spaces as oil on canvas portraits & landscapes.  Once though, an unfamiliar object in such places could shock as French painter & sculptor Marcel Duchamp (1887-1968) managed in 1917 when he submitted a porcelain urinal as his piece for an exhibition in New York, his rationale being “…everyday objects raised to the dignity of a work of art by the artist's act of choice.”  Even then it wasn’t a wholly original approach but the art establishment has never quite recovered and from that urinal to Dadaism, to soup cans to unmade beds, it became accepted that “anything goes” and people should be left to make of it what they will.  Probably the last remaining reliable guide to what really is "art" remains the price tag.

Eye of the prompt 1.1: An AI (artificial intelligence) generated portrait of Lindsay Lohan by ChatGPT imagined in "drip painting style", this one closer to Pollock’s “action painting” technique.

His drip period wholly non-representational, Pollock didn’t produce recognizable portraiture so applying the technique for this purpose demands guesswork.  As AI illustrates, it can be done but, in blending two incompatible modes, whether it looks much like what Pollock would have produced had he accepted a “paint Lindsay Lohan” commission, is wholly speculative.  What is more likely is that even if some sort of hybrid, a portrait by Pollock would have been an abstraction altogether more chaotic and owing little to the structure on which such works usually depend in that there probably would have been no central focal point, fewer hints of symmetry and a use of shading producing a face not lineal in its composition.  That’s what his sense of “continuous motion” dictated: no single form becoming privileged over the rest.  So, this too is not for the literalists schooled in the tradition of photo-realism but as a work it’s also an example of how most armed with Ms Harrison's Jackson Pollock Box could with "drip & fling" produce this but not necessarily would produce this, chaos on canvas needing talent too.

1948 Cisitalia 202 GT (left; 1947-1952) and 1962 Jaguar E-Type (1961-1974; right), Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), New York City.

Urinals tend not to be admired for their aesthetic qualities but there are those who find beauty in stuff as diverse as math equations and battleships.  Certain cars have long been objects which can exert an emotional pull on those with a feeling for such things and if the lines are sufficiently pleasing, many flaws in execution or engineering can be forgivgen.  New York’s MOMA in 1972 acknowledged such creations can be treated as works of art when they added a 1948 Cisitalia 202 GT finished in “Cisitalia Red” (MoMA object number 409.1972) to their collection, the press release noting it was “…the first time that an art museum in the U.S. put a car into its collection.”  Others appeared from time-to-time and while the 1953 Willys-Overland Jeep M-38A1 Utility Truck (MoMA object number 261.2002) perhaps is not conventionally beautiful, its brutish functionalism has a certain simplicity of form and in the exhibition notes MoMA clarified somewhat by describing it as a “rolling sculpture”, presumably in the spirit of a urinal being a “static sculpture”, both to be admired as pieces of design perfectly suited to their intended purpose, something of an art in itself.  Of the 1962 Jaguar E-Type (sometimes informally as XKE or XK-E in the US) open two seater (OTS, better known as a roadster and acquired as MoMA object number 113.996), there was no need to explain because it’s one of the most seductive shapes ever rendered in metal.  Enzo Ferrari (1898-1988) attended the 1961 Geneva International Motor Show (now defunct but, on much the same basis as manufacturers east of Suez buying brand-names such as MG, Jaguar and such, the name has been purchased for use by an event in staged in Qatar) when the E-Type made its stunning debut and part of folklore is he called it “the most beautiful car in the world”.  Whether those words ever passed his lips isn’t certain because the sources vary slightly in detail and il Commendatore apparently never confirmed or denied the sentiment but it’s easy to believe and to this day many agree just looking at the thing can be a visceral experience.  The MoMA car is finished in "Opalescent Dark Blue" with a grey interior and blue soft-top (there are those who would prefer it in BRG (British Racing Green) over tan leather) and although as a piece of design it's not flawless, anyone who can't see the beauty in a Series 1 E-Type OTS is truly an ultracrepidarian.   

Blazon

Blazon (pronounced bley-zuhn)

(1) In heraldry, an escutcheon or coat of arms or a banner depicting a coat of arms.

(2) In heraldry, a description (verbal or written or in an image) of a coat of arms.

(3) In heraldry, a formalized language for describing a coat of arms (the heraldic description of armorial bearings).

(4) An ostentatious display, verbal or otherwise.

(5) A description or recording (especially of the good qualities of a person or thing).

(6) In literature, verses which dwelt upon and described various parts of a woman's body (usually in admiration). 

(7) Conspicuously or publicly to set forth; display; proclaim.

(8) To adorn or embellish, especially brilliantly or showily.

(9) To depict (heraldic arms or the like) in proper form and color.

(10) To describe a coat of arms.

1275-1300: From the late thirteenth century Middle English blazon (armorial bearings, coat of arms), from the twelfth century Old French blason (shield, blazon (also “collar bone”).  Of the words in the Romance languages (the Spanish blason, Italian blasone, Portuguese brasao & Provençal blezo, the first two are said to be French loan-words and the origins of all remain uncertain.  According to the OED (Oxford English Dictionary), the suggestion by nineteenth century French etymologists of connections with Germanic words related to English blaze is dubious because of the sense disparities.  The verb blazon (to depict or paint (armorial bearings) dates from the mid sixteenth century and was either (or both) from the noun or the French blasonner (from the French noun).  In English, it had earlier in the 1500s been used to mean “descriptively to set forth; descriptively” especially (by at least the 1530s) specifically “to vaunt or boast” and in that sense it was probably at least influenced by the English blaze.  Blazon & blazoning are nouns & verbs, blazoner, blazonry & blazonment are nouns and blazoned & blazonable are adjectives; the noun plural is blazons.

A coat of arms, possibly of dubious provenance. 

The now more familiar verb emblazon (inscribe conspicuously) seems first to have been used around the 1590s in the sense of “extol” and the still common related forms (emblazoning; emblazoned) emerged almost simultaneously.  The construct of emblazon was en- +‎ blazon (from the Old French blason (in its primary sense of “shield”).  The en- prefix was from the Middle English en- (en-, in-), from the Old French en- (also an-), from the Latin in- (in, into).  It was also an alteration of in-, from the Middle English in-, from the Old English in- (in, into), from the Proto-Germanic in (in).  Both the Latin & Germanic forms were from the primitive Indo-European en (in, into).  The intensive use of the Old French en- & an- was due to confluence with Frankish intensive prefix an- which was related to the Old English intensive prefix -on.  It formed a transitive verb whose meaning is to make the attached adjective (1) in, into, (2) on, onto or (3) covered.  It was used also to denote “caused” or as an intensifier.  The prefix em- was (and still is) used before certain consonants, notably the labials “b” & “p”.

Google ngram: It shouldn’t be surprising there seems to have been a decline in the use of “blazon” while “emblazoned” has by comparison, in recent decades, flourished.  That would reflect matters of heraldry declining in significance, their appearance in printed materials correspondingly reduced in volume.  However, because of the way Google harvests data for their ngrams, they’re not literally a tracking of the use of a word in society but can be usefully indicative of certain trends, (although one is never quite sure which trend(s)), especially over decades.  As a record of actual aggregate use, ngrams are not wholly reliable because: (1) the sub-set of texts Google uses is slanted towards the scientific & academic and (2) the technical limitations imposed by the use of OCR (optical character recognition) when handling older texts of sometime dubious legibility (a process AI should improve).  Where numbers bounce around, this may reflect either: (1) peaks and troughs in use for some reason or (2) some quirk in the data harvested.

Self referential emblazoning: Lindsay Lohan's selfie of her modeling a sweater by Ashish, her visage emblazoned in sequins, London, November 2014.

Impressionistically though this assumption is, few would doubt “blazon” is now rare while “emblazoned” is far from uncommon.  While “emblazon” began with the meaning “that which the emblazoner does” (ie (1) to adorn with prominent, (2) to inscribe upon and (3) to draw a coat of arms) it evolved by the mid-nineteenth century with the familiar modern sense of “having left in the mind a vivid impression” (often in the form “emblazoned on one’s memory”).  In English, there’s nothing unusual in a derived or modified form of a word becoming common than its original root, even to the point the where the original is rendered rare, unfamiliar or even obsolete, a phenomenon due to changes in usage patterns, altered conventions in pronunciation or shifts in meaning that make the derived form more practical or culturally resonant.  That’s just how English evolves.

Other examples include (1) ruthless vs. ruth (ruth (pity; compassion) was once a common noun in Middle English but has long been extinct while ruthless, there being many who demand the description, remains popular), (2) unkempt vs kempt (kempt (neatly kept) would have been listed as extinct were it not for it finding a niche as a literary and poetic form and has also been used humorously or ironically), (3) disheveled vs sheveled (sheveled was from the Old French chevelé (having hair) and was part of mainstream vocabulary as late as the eighteenth century but, except in jocular use, is effectively non-existent in modern English) and (4) redolent vs dolent (redolent (evocative of; fragrant) was from dolent (sorrowful), from the Latin dolere (to feel pain)); redolent both outlived and enjoyed a meaning-shift from its root.

Etymologists think of these as part of the linguistic fossil record, noting there’s no single reason for the phenomenon beyond what survives being better adapted to cultural or conversational needs.  In that, these examples differ from the playful fork of back-formation which has produced (1) combobulate (a back-formation from discombobulate (to confuse or disconcert; to throw into a state of confusion) which was a humorous mock-Latin creation in mid-nineteenth century US English) (2) couth (a nineteenth century back-formation from uncouth and used as a humorous form meaning “refined”), (3) gruntled (a twentieth century back-formation meaning “happy or contented; satisfied”, the source being disgruntled (unhappy; malcontented) and most sources indicate it first appeared in print in 1926 but the most celebrated example comes from PG Wodehouse (1881–1975) who in The Code of the Woosters (1938) penned: “He spoke with a certain what-is-it in his voice, and I could see that, if not actually disgruntled, he was far from being gruntled.”  Long a linguistic joke, some now take gruntled seriously but for the OED remains thus far unmoved and (4) ept (a back-formation from inept (not proficient; incompetent or not competent (there is a functional difference between those two)) which was from the Middle French inepte, from the Latin ineptus).

Literary use

In literary use, “blazon” was a technical term used by the Petrarchists (devotes of Francis Petrarch (1304-1374), a scholar & poet of the early Italian Renaissance renowned for his love poems & sonnets and regarded also as one of the earliest humanists).  Blazon in this context (a subset of what literary theorists call “catalogue verse”) was adopted because, like the structured and defined elements of heraldic symbolism, Petrarch’s poems contained what might be thought an “inventory” of verses which dwelt upon and detailed the various parts of a woman's body; a sort of catalogue of her physical attributes.  Petrarch’s approach wasn’t new because as a convention in lyric poetry it was well-known by the mid thirteenth century, most critics crediting the tradition to the writings of Geoffrey of Vinsauf, a figure about whom little is although it’s believed he was born in Normandy.  In England the Elizabethan sonneteers honed the technique as a devotional device, often, in imaginative ways, describing the bits of their mistresses they found most pleasing, a classic example a fragment from Amoretti and Epithalamion (1595), a wedding day ode by the English poet Edmund Spenser (circa 1552-1599) to his bride (Elizabeth Boyle) in 1594:

Her goodly eyes like sapphires shining bright.
Her forehead ivory white,
Her cheeks like apples which the sun hath rudded,
Her lips like cherries charming men to bite,
Her breast like to a bowl of cream uncrudded,
Her paps like lilies budded,
Her snowy neck like to a marble tower,
And all her body like a palace fair.

Two bowls of cream uncrudded.

So objectification of the female form is nothing new and the poets saw little wrong with plagiarism, most of the imagery summoned salvaged from the works of Antiquity by elegiac Roman and Alexandrian Greek poets.  Most relied for their effect on brevity, almost always a single, punchy line and none seem ever to attempt the scale of the “epic simile”.  As can be imagined, the novelty of the revival didn’t last and the lines soon were treated by readers (some of whom were fellow poets) as clichés to be parodied (a class which came to be called “contrablazon”), the London-based courtier Sir Philip Sidney (1554–1586) borrowing from the Italian poet Francesco Berni (1497–1535) the trick of using terms in the style of Petrarch but “mixing them up”, thus creating an early form of body dysmorphia: Mopsa's forehead being “jacinth-like”, cheeks of “opal”, twinkling eyes “bedeckt with pearl” and lips of “sapphire blue”.

William Shakespeare (1564–1616) however saw other possibilities in the blazon and in Sonnet 130 (1609) turned the idea on its head, listing the imperfections in her body parts and characteristics yet concluding, despite all that, he anyway adored her like no other (here rendered in a more accessible English):

My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun;
Coral is far more red than her lips' red;
If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun;
If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head.
I have seen roses damasked, red and white,
But no such roses see I in her cheeks;
And in some perfumes is there more delight
Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks.
I love to hear her speak, yet well I know
That music hath a far more pleasing sound;
I grant I never saw a goddess go;
My mistress, when she walks, treads on the ground.
   And yet, by heaven, I think my love as rare
   As any she belied with false compare.

Dick-pic & Slot-shot

Dick-pic (pronounced dik-pik)

A picture of a human’s penis, if taken and disseminated in a certain context.

Dick became the pet-form name circa 1550 (though some etymologists suspect it had earlier been in use) for Richard via being the rhyming nickname for Rick, Richard's original affectionate diminutive.  Richard being (1) among the commonest English names and (2) exclusively male, it quickly become a synonym for "fellow; lad" and thereby a generally used word to refer to men, individually and collectively; from this connection came the use of dick as slang for that exclusively male body part.  Anything claimed to be an authoritative list of the slang senses must be viewed with scepticism because many forms are very old and the surviving written records are not a comprehensive catalogue of what was often an exclusively oral dialect so the date of origin is uncertain.  The meaning "penis" is attested from 1891 in a dictionary of farmer's slang and was said (predictably) to have been well-known British army slang but, perhaps regionally, the use could date back a century or more.  Most sources note "dick" in this context is thought now less offensive than once it was but for those still disturbed, there's a goodly number of alternatives. 

Pic of Dick Face: The Honorable Richard Face (1943-2023), former New South Wales (NSW) minister of gaming & racing (1995-2003).

The vulgar slang nouns dickhead & dickface (a stupid or contemptible person) are attested only from circa 1969 so Richard Face’s parents can't be accused of making what might now be thought an unwise choice.  Interestingly, although presumably not unaware of the linguistic possibilities his name offered, Richard Face was either indifferent or saw some political advantage in brand-name awareness because he chose to remain a Richard (and, by implication, a "Dick") despite being christened Jack Richard Face.  Whether he ran the usual focus groups to find which worded best (Dick Face or Jack Face) isn't known.  In time, he did live up to his name, in 2004 fined Aus$2500 an given a three-year good behaviour bond for lying to the NSW Independent Commission against Corruption (ICAC), the magistrate's rationale for not imposing a custodial sentence being (1) he was no longer a police officer and therefore "not directly involved in the administration of justice", (2) had an "exemplary record of public service", (3) had been under stress, was depressed and a heavy drinker at the time of his lie, (4) had shown remorse and pleaded guilty, (5) had "not committed perjury" or "sworn false evidence" and (6) "did not engage in persistently false swearing over sustained periods of time."

Pic of Richard Face the cat.

Pic was first recorded circa 1885 as a shortening of picture (image, likeness, photo, etc).  Picture was from the Middle English pycture, from the Old French picture, from the Latin pictūra (the art of painting, a painting), from pingō (I paint); a doublet of pictura.  The plural is pics but pix is common in casual & commercial use so the accepted alternative plural of dick-pics would be dick-pix.  The linguistically fastidious used to be troubled by spellings which respected only the pronunciation (pix, nite, lite, luv etc) but even before the internet their use in advertising and brand names had made them so common the battle obviously was lost.  In structural linguistics, the technical term for such words is “eye dialect”, used to describe a deliberate misspelling of words to suggest a particular pronunciation, dialect, or informal tone, even though the intended pronunciation remains the same.  The use (apart from alternative spellings or misspellings which would have predated the modern practice) seems to have been popularized (and to some extent thus legitimized) in commerce for purposes of advertising or branding and from here it was picked up in casual writing where it can impart variously feelings of playfulness or the "modern".  The Ford Ka (1996–2021) and Chevrolet Cruze (2008–2023) were both named using the technique and familiar examples include Krispy Kreme, Dunkin’ Donuts and Froot Loops but it was also a literary device in fiction as early as the nineteenth century, used by Mark Twain (1835-1910) to evoke Southern American speech patterns and Charles Dickens (1812–1870) to summon the sound of what was perceived as “typical” working-class speech.  George Bernard Shaw (GBS; 1856-1950), a proponent of the internationalist Esperanto language and often (understandably) critical of English spelling rules, in Pygmalion (1913) used phonetic spellings not only to reflect variations in diction and accents but also to contrast the difference between “proper” and informal speech, a central theme of the play.  In modern use, because the forms often use fewer characters, the practice became a staple of texting (SMS; short message service) which for a certain demographic in the now distant pre-social media, pre-smartphone era became the preferred means of communication.

Dick pics and their role in politics.

As the downfall of disgraced New York politician Anthony Weiner (b 1964) illustrates, politicians should avoid dick-pics on the basis of “good rarely come of it” but, done carefully, they do have a place.  In 1956, the Republican Party’s campaign committee for the 1956 US presidential election included the slogan “I Like Ike”, taking advantage of the great popularity of Dwight Eisenhower (1890-1969; US president 1953-1961) who was seeking re-election.  As a companion slogan, the committee used “We Like Dick” to support Eisenhower’s running mate Richard Nixon (1913-1994; US vice-president 1953-1961 & president 1969-1974).  To cover both, there were also posters and campaign buttons with “I Like Ike and Dick” and the party enjoyed great success, their ticket securing 57.4% of the popular vote and carrying the Electoral College 457-73 (41 states to 7).  Thus encouraged, when Nixon ran for president in 1960, among the promotional materials used were posters and campaign buttons using a variation: “The Nation Needs Dick!”  In 1960, things didn’t go so well with the Democratic Party’s nominee John Kennedy (JFK, 1917–1963; US president 1961-1963) winning by “an electoral eyelash”: the popular vote split 49.72-49.55% in Kennedy’s favour and he took the Electoral College 303-219 although he carried on 22 states to Nixon’s 26.  So, the “The Nation Needs Dick!” campaign nearly worked because in the popular vote Kennedy prevailed only by the twentieth century’s narrowest margin: 34,220,984 to 34,108,157.  That tight result has always fuelled the idea the documented electoral fraud in several states robbed Nixon of a victory and he had no doubts, hosting a subdued Christmas party in Washington DC a few months later he told his guests: “We won, but they stole it from us.”  Despite that, things were done differently in 1960 and although he’d be told by advisors there was enough evidence of fraud for him to challenge the result, he declined on the basis of the damage it might do to the country, telling his staff: “Nobody steals the presidency of the United States.”    

Slot-shot (pronounced slot-shot)

A picture of a human female’s genitalia, if taken and disseminated in a certain context.

Slot in the sense of a "bar or bolt used to fasten a door, window etc" entered Middle English circa 1300 from the Middle Dutch or Middle Low German slot, from the Old High German sloz & German Schloss (bolt, bar, lock, castle), from the Proto-Germanic stem slut- (to close).  The anatomical use to describe the "hollow at the base of the throat above the breastbone" was a late fourteenth century adoption from the Old French esclot (hoof-print of a deer or horse) of uncertain origin, but this sense is probably obsolete except in historic references.  Slot meaning a "a narrow, elongated depression, groove, notch, slit, or aperture, especially a narrow opening for receiving or admitting something" dates from the 1520s, the idea later developed to suggest putting something "where it belongs" but this seems to have been adopted only in the mid-1960s.

Shot (in the sense of the firing of a bow (later applied to firearms etc)) was from pre-900 Middle English, from the Old English sc(e)ot & (ge)sceot and was cognate with the German Schoss & Geschoss.  It was related to the Old Norse skot and the Old High German scoz (missile).  The sense of shot as the "view from a camera" isn't attested until 1958 although it had been used in the cinematic sense since 1922 to describe the process of recording movies (mov(ing picture) + -ies) since 1922 and may thus have enjoyed earlier use.  As used to refer to individual pictures, printed usually on cardboard or special photographic paper, it dates from the late 1930s, the specialized use in law enforcement (as mugshot) began in the US in 1950.

Of context

A “Liz & Dick pic”: Lindsay Lohan (b 1986) & Grant Bowler (b 1968) during the filming of Liz & Dick (2012), a “biopic” of the famously tempestuous relationship between the actors Elizabeth Taylor (1932–2011) & Richard Burton (1925–1984).  The car is a Mercedes-Benz 600 (W100; 1963-1981) four-door Pullman with the vis-a-vis seating.  The flag-staffs (fitted in this instance above the front wheel arches) were usually fitted to cars used by the governments or the corps diplomatique.

The dick-pic, the practice of someone (usually male) sending another (usually female) an unsolicited picture of (what is usually their own) penis isn’t a recent invention but the extraordinary latter day spike in the numbers sent is a genuine cultural phenomenon.  It’s socially and technologically deterministic, something made possible by (1) the permissive social attitude of the participating demographic, (2) the ubiquity of their possession of high-definition cameras, (3) the removal from the process of third-parties (especially those who once developed and printed the physical images), (4) the extent of digital connectivity between members of the demographic and (5), the marginal financial cost of the transactions.  It’s an interesting development in that in the West, the history of the depiction of nudity is overwhelmingly female so “pictures of genitalia sent by phone” is a genre in the annals of the nude (technically probably the naked) untypically dominated by the male body.

Generally uncontroversial if either requested or welcomed by a recipient with whom an appropriate level of emotional capital has already been built, dick-pics are notorious for the negative emotions induced in those receiving them as something unsolicited and unwelcome.  So, unless the intention is actually to shock, offend or upset (and among the demographic, that is sometimes a thing) they’re best avoided; good rarely seems to come of them and in some jurisdictions, there are circumstances in which sending a dick-pic can be an offence which can result in the sender being placed for life on a sex-offender’s register; it depends on the context.

Dick-pic detail from Michelangelo Buonarroti’s (1475–1564) David (1501-1504), Galleria dell'Accademia, Florence.

Michelangelo’s David, a six-ton, 17-foot (5.2 m) tall symbol of divine victory over evil is art as a sculpture or in depiction and, despite the visible penis, in the West is usually thought not obscene.  In another context it can be, the erection of some inventive interior decorating required to conceal the offensive bits when a 3D-printed replica was displayed at the 2021 Dubai Expo.  It happens in the West too.  In the nineteenth century the Grand Duke of Tuscany presented Queen Victoria with a full-sized replica of the original which she found so confronting that hurriedly a proportionally accurate fig leaf was crafted, kept in readiness for any royal visits to be hung from two strategically placed hooks.  Even in the twenty-first century, replicas have attracted complaints, the argument being the context of a museum which people choose to visit being different for places where encounters may happen by chance.  Obscenity and offensiveness thus are situational constructs and a dick-pic exchanged between consenting adults is different from discovered in other circumstances; it depends on the context.

The SSSSS: Svakom Siime Sex Selfie Stick.

It’s assumed because there are few reports of women sending pics of their genitalia that the practice is notably less common than the dick-pic and while that’s not an accepted way to draw a definitive conclusion from two data sets, few doubt it’s true.  There are surely many reasons that’s the case and the paucity of examples is probably the reason a standardized female equivalent of “dick-pic” seems not to have evolved.  Suggestions have included “gash-flash”, “trap-snap” and “clamagram” but the most phonetically pleasing are probably “pussy-portrait” and “slot-shot”, the latter a metaphor which references the slot on a machine which is a perfect fit for coins of a certain denomination.  For women who find artistically limiting the idea of a static slot-shot, for US$149, there’s the Svakom Siime Sex Selfie Stick (SSSSS), a USB-rechargeable video-recorder-vibrator which offers, especially for those with basic video-editing skills, the chance to create a clip of an organism from the inside.  Thus the "clit-clip", a bit of digital one-upmanship (that may not be quite the right noun) on any "dick-pic".  

Available in violet, khaki & black, she can be connected to the USB port of a PC or Mac and there's a downloadable app for MacOS, Windows (XP SP2 onwards), iOS and Android.  The camera is a seemingly modest .3 megapixel unit but given the environment in which she'll be operating, that's more than adequate; videos are saved in the familiar mp4 format, the product & software manuals are both downloadable and there's an instructional video on the Svakom website.  Whisper-quiet to ensure privacy, battery-life is said to be around two hours of "continuous use" so one can understand why women might prefer such a device to most men.  The manufacturer refers to the SSSSS as "she" rather than "he" (or even "it"), an interesting assignment of notional gender given the anatomical emulation.

L'Origine du monde (The Origin of the World (1866)), oil on canvas by Gustave Courbet (1819-1877), Musée d'Orsay, Paris.

The recumbent female has, off and on, been a staple of Western art since Antiquity but there was something about French artist’s Gustave Courbet’s L'Origine du monde which was so provocative that publicly, it wasn’t exhibited for 120 years.  A slot-shot writ large, it’s still a work which many institutions avoid, even those sanguine about female nudity (and nakedness) in artistic and other contexts, one columnist noting recently the painting “… if indeed it can be called erotic…” was “…still unsuitable for publication in a paper with a general readership.”  Perhaps it’s because it so differs from the long traditions of the nude, a study more gynecological than artistic or maybe it’s the lush and untended growth of pubic hair, something which seems often to disturb though it may be anatomically accurate: One Russian gynecologist was asked whether the model was a virgin and, after casting his professional eye, answered with an emphatic “Nyet”.  There’s also the objectification, the decapitation of the subject reducing the work somehow to a slot-shottish case-study for the male gaze, a reductionism which has for decades attracted criticism from feminists.  When depictions of L'Origine du monde have appeared in bookshops and galleries, there’s often been controversy, sometimes requiring the summoning of the gendarmerie although the Musée d'Orsay reports the work appears on one of their gift-shop’s best-selling post-cards so there's that.

The head presumptive (publicized in 2013).

Commissioned by Ottoman-Egyptian diplomat Halil Şerif Pasha (Khalil Bey 1831-1879) as an addition to his famous collection of erotica, ever since first it was seen, historians of art have debated among themselves the identity of the model, their short-list with some glee referred to as Les suspects habituels de Gustave (Gustave’s usual suspects).  No conclusion has ever been agreed although the factions promote their theories, one based on an analysis of the joining edges of the respective canvases, an allegedly matching upper-section displayed in 2013.  The Musée d'Orsay issued a statement saying L'Origine du monde is, as it exists, a complete work and not part of a larger whole.  The mystery continues.

Highlight of Coastal Carolina University vs East Carolina University, Clark-LeClair Stadium, East Carolina University, Greenville, North Carolina, 8 March, 2025. 

There are also “butt pics”.  In March 2025 a user posted on X (formerly known as Twitter) a clip from ESPN’s coverage of a baseball game between Coastal Carolina University and East Carolina University (Coastal Carolina won 9-11-1 to 1-6-0) which showed two women, one snapping what quickly was described as a “butt-pic” of the other.  Almost instantly viral, the tweet gained more than 10 million views, numbers the ESPN programmers doubtless wish college baseball could generate.  The two protagonists were said to be “not identified” but presumably promotional opportunities on Instagram and TikTok beckon and there may soon be OnlyFans accounts.