Burlesque

Burlesque (pronounced ber-lesk)

(1) An artistic composition, especially literary or dramatic, that, for the sake of laughter, vulgarizes lofty material or treats ordinary material with mock dignity.

(2) A humorous and provocative (often bawdy) stage show featuring slapstick humor, comic skits and a scantily clad female chorus; by the late nineteenth century striptease was often the main element (the usual slang was burleycue).

(3) As neo-burlesque, a late twentieth century revival (with rather more artistic gloss) of the strip-tease shows of the 1920s.

(4) An artistic work (especially literary or dramatic), satirizing a subject by caricaturing it.

(5) Between the seventeenth and nineteenth centuries, a play parodying some contemporary dramatic fashion or event.

(6) A production of some kind involving ludicrous or mocking treatment of a solemn subject; an absurdist imitation or caricature.

(7) Of, relating to, or characteristic of a burlesque; of, relating to, or like stage-show burlesque.

(8) To represent or imitate (a person or thing) in a ludicrous way; caricature.

(9) To make ridiculous by mocking representation.

(10) To in some way use a certain type of caricature.

1650–1660: From the French burlesque, from the Italian burlesco (ludicrous and used in the sense of “parodic”), the construct being burl(a) (joke, fun, mockery) + -esco (the adjectival suffix used in English as –esque).  The Italian burla may ultimately be from the Late Latin burra (trifle, nonsense (and literally “flock of wool”) and thus used to suggest something “fluffy” (in the sense of being “lightweight” rather than serious) which was of unknown origin.  Alternatively, some etymologists suggest burla may be from the Spanish burladero (the protective barrier behind which people in the bullring are protected from the bull).  The verb burlesque (make ridiculous by mocking representation) came directly from the noun and was in use by the 1670s.  The spelling burlesk is archaic.  While the derived form unburlesqued means simply “not burlesqued”, preburlesque is a historian's term meaning “prior to the introduction of burlesque performances”.  Burlesque, burlesquer & burlesqueness are nouns, burlesqued & burlesquing are verbs and burlesquely is an adverb; the noun plural is burlesques.

The original mid-sixteenth century meaning was related to stage performances and meant “a piece composed in the burlesque style, a derisive imitation or grotesque parody, a specific development from the slightly earlier adjectival sense of “odd or grotesque”, taken directly from the French burlesque.  The more familiar adjectival meaning (tending to excite laughter by ludicrous contrast between the subject and the manner of treating it) was in use by at least the late 1690s.  As a definition that’s fine but in the hands of playwrights, satirists and such there was obviously much scope, prompting one journalist (a breed which seems first to have been described thus in the 1680s) in 1711 to clarify things in a London periodical:

“The two great branches of ridicule in writing are comedy and burlesque. The first ridicules persons by drawing them in their proper characters; the other, by drawing them quite unlike themselves. Burlesque is therefore of two kinds; the first represents mean persons in accoutrements of heroes, the other describes great persons acting and speaking like the basest among the people.”

The meaning shifted as what appeared on stage evolved and by the 1880s the typical understanding was something like (1) “travesties on the classics and satires on accepted ideas” and (2) comic opera which tended towards vulgarity.  From this came the still prevalent modern sense of “variety show featuring music, dancing and striptease” although some historians of the industry link this use directly from the mid-nineteenth century tradition of “scantily-clad performers who staged the sketches concluding minstrel shows”.  The implications of that evolution didn’t impress all and by the early twentieth century, in the US, the word “burlesque” had become verbal shorthand for “entertainment designed to titillate, verging on the obscene while avoiding prosecution”.  The term “neo-burlesque” (a revived form of traditional American burlesque performance, involving dance, striptease, dramatic performance etc) emerged in the 1990s, describing the stage shows which sought to re-capture the once respectable spirit of burlesque as it was performed in US clubs before “changing attitudes” saw the performances outlawed or marginalized.  Whether attitudes really much changed among the general population has been debated by historians but the US political system then (as now) operated in a way in which well-funded groups could exert a disproportionate influence on public policy and while this often was used by sectional interests to gain financial advantage, some also decided to impose on others their view of morality; it was in the era of the crackdown on burlesque shows the Motion Picture Production Code (the so-called “Hays Code” which, remarkably, endured, at least on paper, until 1968!) was created as a set of “moral guidelines” with which the Hollywood studios had to conform.  So the “culture wars” are nothing new and in the US, there has always been a tension between puritan religiosity and political freedom, the two forces reflecting the concerns and obsessions of those from the “Old World” of Europe who in the early seventeenth century founded the settlement which ultimate became what came to be known as “America”.

Although often hardly “respectable” theatre, burlesque has a long tradition in performance and almost its techniques will long pre-date recorded history.  The essence of the form was based on an exaggerated “sending up” or a derisive imitation of a literary or musical work and can be anything from a friendly joke to vicious ridicule.  Historically most associated with some form of stage entertainment, burlesque was distinguished from parody in being usually stronger (though not always broader) in tone and style and often lacked the edgy subtlety of satire.   It was the Athenian playwright of Ancient Greece, Aristophanes (circa 446–386 BC), who the late Medieval scribes declared “the father of comedy” and while that was a little misleading, he would occasionally use the device of burlesque in his plays though the satyr plays probably were the first institutionalized form of burlesque.

Empire Burlesque (1985) by Bob Dylan (b 1941).

Early in his long career, Bob Dylan must have noticed the press seemed to be more interested in discussing the stuff about which he didn’t comment that that which he’d taken the time to explain.  Whether or not that’s a factor, Dylan appears never to have explained the meaning behind the title of his 1985 album, Empire Burlesque.  Although some speculated it may have been a metaphor for the nature of “the American Empire” (however defined), there’s nothing substantive to support the speculation and a more grounded theory came from the Beat poet Allen Ginsberg (1926–1997) who recounted how Dylan had once told him: “That was the name of a burlesque club I used to go to when I first came to New York, down on Delancey Street.”  Ginsberg thought it “a good title” for an album.

Intriguingly, the satyr play was a kind of coda.  In Greek theatre, the convention was to present four plays in succession: three tragedies (though not necessarily a trilogy) with a satyr play appended as the final piece.  Typically, in a satyr play, a mythical hero (who may have appeared in one or all of the foregoing tragedies) was presented as a ridiculous personage with a chorus of satyrs (creatures half man and half goat (or half horse) with prominent, erect phalluses (it was satyr imagery which in Europe made the goat a symbol of lust and, two millennia on, cynical Berliners would refer to the notoriously philandering Dr Joseph Goebbels (1897-1975; Nazi propaganda minister 1933-1945) as “the he-goat of Berlin”)).  As far as is known, the satyr plays almost always were ribald in speech and action as well as in costume and their purpose has been debated by historians.  While classical Greek tragedy is almost wholly devoid of comedy (in the sense of set-pieces although there’s the occasional sardonic quip or grim observation that would have enticed a laconic guffaw) the satyr play concluding the tetralogy would have worked as a sort of palliative burlesque after the catharsis of three acts of fear, loathing and, not infrequently, death,  Their dramatic function clearly was a form of comic relief but coming immediately after three works of earnest high-seriousness, they must have has the effect of “calming the senses” of the audience after the intense, exalting spiritual experience of the tragedies.  That’s interesting in that it implies it was thought desirable to return the audience to “earthly life” and remind them what they had just experienced was not “reality” and their emotions had just been manipulated by a technique.  It all sounds rather post-modern and in a similar literary vein, the “clowning interludes” in Elizabethan plays can also be seen as a type of burlesque; in William Shakespeare’s (1564–1616) A Midsummer Night's Dream (1590) the interpolation of the play of Pyramus and Thisbe performed by Bottom and his companions was the bard making fun of the “Interludes” of earlier types.

An expanded vista derailing the Pronomos Vase (red-figure pottery Ancient Greece, circa 400 BC) believed to depict the whole cast and chorus of a satyr play, along with the playwright, the musician Pronomos, and the gods Dionysos and Ariadne.  The scene is thought to capture the figures after a performance which, in modern use, would be thought a “behind the scenes” grab.   The vase was discovered in 1835 in a tomb in Ruvo di Puglia, Italy; it’s now on permanent display in the Museo Nazionale in Naples.

To make things difficult for students, there are linguistic traps in the terminology and despite the similarity in the spelling, there was no connection whatever between satyric drama and satire and some seem convinced there may have been none between it and Greek comedy.  For structuralists, it can be a difficult field to study because over the centuries so many contradictory texts and commentaries emerged and that’s at least partly attributable to the influence of Aristotle (384-322 BC) who looms over the understanding of Greek theatre because his writings came to be so revered by the scholars of the late Medieval period and especially the Renaissance.  As far as in known, the Greeks were the first of the tragedians and it’s through the surviving texts of Aristotle that later understandings were filtered but all of his conclusions were based only on the tragedies and such was his historic and intellectual authority that for centuries his theories came to be misapplied and misused, either by mapping them on to all forms of tragedy or using them as exclusionary, dismissing from the canon those works which couldn’t be made to fit his descriptions.

The Pronomos Vase as displayed in Naples.

Nor was burlesque confined to drama; it was the most common structure used in the mock-heroic poem to ridicule the often overblown works of romance, chivalry and Puritanism.  Dripping often with irony and a confected grave decorum, the classic example is English poet & satirist Alexander Pope’s (1688-1744) The Rape of the Lock (1712), cited by some (however unconvincingly) as the spiritual origin of “high camp”.  Also, because the gothic novel often was written in such self-conscious “high style”, the form lent itself naturally to burlesque re-tellings, something exploited to this day in Hollywood which has often made sequels to horror films in comedic from.  The burlesque (in the sense it was a descendent of the Greek satyr play) could also be positioned as something transgressive although it must be wondered if this sometimes was a product more of the commentator’s view than the positionality intended by the author.  This aspect of burlesque is explored in the genre of literary carnival when a technique is borrowed from the Socratic dialogues (in which what appears to be logic is deconstructed and proved to be illogical).  Carnivalesque elements are inherent in burlesque (and can exist in satire, farce, parody and such) and a theory of Russian philosopher & literary critic Mikhail Bakhtin (1895–1975) was that in its disruption of authority and implication of possible alternatives, carnival in literature was subversive and the use of burlesque in the form was a concealment (in the sense of avoiding the censor’s pen) of what could be a liberating influence; Bakhtin’s particular target was the “suffocatingly sacred word” in Renaissance culture but his theory has more generally been applied.

The noun amphigory (burlesque nonsense writing or verse) dates from 1809 and was from the eighteenth century French amphigouri of unknown origin but presumed by most etymologists to have been a jocular coining although there may have been some influence from the New Latin amphi-, from the Ancient Greek ἀμφί (amphí) (on both sides) and the Greek γύρος (gýros), derived from the “turning of the meat on a spit” (as a calque of Turkish döner into Greek).  The notion was of “making the whole” (ie “circle on both sides”) but a link with the Greek -agoria (speech) (as in allegory, category) has been suggested as a simpler explanation.  The word “amphigory” found a niche in literary criticism and academic use (recommended for students wishing to impress the professor) to describe a particular flavour of burlesque or parody, especially a verse or other text in which the impression is for a while sustained of something which will make sense but ultimately fails, an oft-cited example being Nephelidia (literally “cloudlets”) by the English poet Algernon Charles Swinburne (1837–1909) in which the writer parodies his own distinctive style.

In A Dictionary of Modern English Usage (1926), Henry Fowler (1858–1933) noted the wide application of the words often listed as synonymous with burlesque (caricature, parody, travesty etc), citing the not uncommon use of burlesque to describe a “badly conducted trial” or “a perverted institution”, adding the two critical distinctions were (1) burlesque, caricature & parody have, besides their wider uses, each a special province; action or acting is burlesqued, form and features are caricatured and verbal expression is parodied and (2) travesty differs from the others both in having no special providence and, in being more used than they (though all four may be used either way) when the imitation is intended to be or pass for an exact one but fails.  Were Henry Fowler alive to see TikTok and such, he’d realize not many are reading his book.

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The difficulty in assigning synonyms to “burlesque” is that things are not only nuanced but historically variable; what would in one time and place have been thought satirical might in other circumstances be called a parody.  The earliest known use in English of the noun parody was by the playwright Benjamin Jonson (circa 1572-circa 1637) who would have understood it as something close to the modern definition: “a literary work in which the form and expression of dignified writing are closely imitated but are made ridiculous by the ludicrously inappropriate subject or methods; a travesty that follows closely the form and expression of the original”.  Parody was from the Latin parodia (parody), from the Ancient Greek parōidia (burlesque song or poem), the construct being para- (beside, parallel to (used in this context in the sense “to mock; mockingly to present”)) + ōidē (song, ode) and from the technical use in theatre came the general meaning “a poor or feeble imitation”, in use by at least the late 1820s.  So, depending on the details, a parody could be a type of burlesque but might also be described as a satire, ridicule, lampoon or farce.  It was Benjamin Jonson who in 1609 debuted his “anti-masque” an innovation which took the form of either (1) a buffoonish and grotesque episode before the main masque or (2) a similarly farcical interlude interpolated during the performance (if performed beforehand, it was dubbed an “ante-masque”. One variant of the anti-masque was a burlesque of the masque itself and in that sense there was a distinct affinity with the Greek satyr play.

So in literary use, synonyms for burlesque must be applied on a case-by-case basis, caricature, parody and travesty all used variously to refer to the written or preformed forms imitating serious works or subjects, the purpose being to achieve a humorous or satiric purpose.  In this context, burlesque achieves its effects through a mockery of both high and low through association with their opposites: burlesques of high and low life can thus be though a kind of specific application of irony.  Caricature, usually associated with visual arts or with visual effects in literary works, implies exaggeration of characteristic details, analogous with the technique of the political cartoonist.  Parody achieves humor through application of the manner or technique (typically well-known poets, authors, artists and such), often to an unaccustomed (and, ideally, wholly incongruous) subject while a travesty can be a grotesque form of burlesque, the latter also nuanced because travesties can be intentional or just bad products.  All of these forms can be the work of absurdists, that genre ranging from the subtle to the blatant and they may also be spoofs.  Spoof was a neologism coined in 1884 by the English comedian Arthur Roberts (1852–1933) as the name of a card game which involved deception, trickery and nonsense.  From this the word came to be used of any sort of hoaxing game but it became most popular when used of literary works and staged performances which is some way parodied someone or something but the point about the use of “spoof” is should describe a “gentle” rather than a “biting” satire, elements of the burlesque thus often present in spoofs.

South Park's take on Donald Trump (b 1946; US president 2017-2021 and since 2025).  Somewhere in probably every South Park episode, there are switches between parody, satire, ridicule, lampoon and farce with elements of the burlesque often in each.

A distinction certainly is drawn between political burlesque and political satire.  Political burlesque is a particular application of the satirical which relies on parody and exaggeration (often absurdist) to mock political figures, events, concepts or institutions and the purpose can range from the merely comic to the subversive, the two poles not being mutually exclusive.  In the burlesque, a politician’s traits, patterns of speech or behaviour (scandals are best) are explored and sometimes exaggerated to the point they become obviously ridiculous or absurd, the best practitioners of the art using the amplification to take things to a logical (if improbable) conclusion and while it can be done almost affectionately, the usual purpose is to draw attention to flaws such as incompetence, corruption, indifference to others, hypocrisy or ideological fanaticism.  Essentially a political cartoon writ large, it’s a popular device because in masking the message in humor, there’s usually some protection from a defamation writ, witness the relationship between the animation South Park and Donald Trump.  The tradition is old and evidence is at least hinted in graffiti unearthed in Ancient Rome but material from in recent centuries is extant and techniques of the English artists William Hogarth (1697–1764) and James Gillray (1756-1815) remain in use to this day, illustrating the way political burlesque is best understood as a sub-set of political satire, separate but (often) equal as it were, the differences in tone, method, and degree of exaggeration a matter of tactics rather than strategy.

As an umbrella term, “political satire” has a wide vista in that it can be subtle, dry, ironic & biting, deployed with wit & understatement but it can also switch to (some would say “descend to”) the burlesque in becoming loud, exaggerated and even grotesque in fusing elements of slapstick and farce.  While burlesque amplifies absurdity, venality or whatever is being critiqued, satire need only “point it out” and some very effective satires have done nothing more than quote politicians verbatim, their words “hoisting them with their own petard” if the mixed metaphor will be forgiven.  So, all political burlesque is political satire, but not all political satire is burlesque.  The companion term in politics is vaudevillian and that describes a politician for whom “all the world’s a stage” and politics thus a form of theatre.  Their performances can (sometimes unintentionally) sometimes seem to at least verge on the burlesque but usually it’s about attracting attention and a classic exponent was Boris Johnson (b 1964; UK prime-minister 2019-2022) who was said to have been influenced by Ronald Reagan (1911-2004; US president 1981-1989).  During the 1980 presidential campaign, a reporter asked Mr Reagan: “How can an actor run for President?”, receiving the prompt reply: “How can a president not be an actor?”  Some have of course been more adapt than others at “flicking the switch to vaudeville” and Paul Keating (b 1944; Prime Minister of Australia 1991-1996) whose vocabulary was rich (if not always refined) used to use what he called his “dead cat strategy” which referred to introducing a shocking or controversial issue to divert unwanted attention from other, more embarrassing or damaging news.  It was most graphically expressed as “tossing a dead cat on the table”.

Lindsay Lohan in burlesque mode in I Know Who Killed Me (2007).  Neglected upon its release, IKWKM has since been re-evaluated as a modern giallo and has acquired a cult following, sometimes see on the playbill of late-night screenings.

As popular entertainment, burlesque performance enjoyed a revival which began in the 1990s and in the twenty-first century it’s now an entrenched niche as well a minor industry in publishing.  By the 1960s, what was called burlesque had become rather tatty and the common understanding of the term was something not greatly different from a strip club with a slightly better class of drunk in the audience, the women there to disrobe in the hope of encouraging the sale of expensive alcoholic.  What in the 1990s was dubbed the “neo-burlesque” was not a reprise of how things used to be done but a construct which might be thought a more “women-centric” interpretation of the discipline and while there will be factions of feminism which won’t take that notion too seriously and dismiss as “false consciousness” the idea of women publicly taking off their clothes as a form of “empowerment”, the latter day performers seem to treat it as exactly that.  Despite the criticism of some, burlesque seem now to verge on the respectable and, internationally, there are various burlesque festivals and a Burlesque Hall of Fame (the grand opening, perhaps predictably, in Las Vegas).

Burlesque and the Art of the Teese /Fetish and the Art of the Teese (2006) by Dita Von Teese (stage name of Heather Renée Sweet, b 1972).  Perhaps surprisingly, despite the phrase “the art of the teese” being at least potentially a piece of “ambush marketing” piggy-backing on the success of the acclaimed (48 weeks on The New York Times Best Seller list) book The Art of the Deal by Donald Trump and Tony Schwartz (b 1952), Mr Trump didn’t sue Ms von Teese.  Maybe he’s a burlesque fan-boy.

In the modern era, no figure is more associated with the neo-burlesque than Dita von Teese and her janus-configured book Burlesque and the Art of the Teese / Fetish and the Art of the Teese is similar to Mr Trump’s magnum opus in being a hybrid: part memoir, part instruction manual.  This significance of publishing the burlesque and fetish components as separate sections was presumably to make the point that while there’s obvious cross-fertilization between the two disciplines and for some the former may be a stepping stone to the latter, there is a clear distinction, one a piece of performance art, the other a deliberate statement of deviance; decisively one must step from one into the separate world of the other.  Ms von Teese’s book documents the “dos & don’ts” of each “calling” and. as she explains, the point about the neo-burlesque was it was less a revival than a re-defining, the thematic emphasis on style and glamour rather than sleaze, more aligned with the image (if not exactly the reality) of the Berlin cabarets of the 1920 than the seedy Soho strip joints which once so tarnished the brand.

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.   

Nude & Naked

Nude (pronounced nood or nyood)

(1) Naked or unclothed, as a person or the body.

(2) Without the usual coverings, furnishings etc; bare.

(3) In art, being or prominently displaying a representation of the nude human figure.

(4) In law, a contract made without a consideration or other legal essential and therefore invalid (nudum pactum).

(5) In historic commercial use (usually for underwear), a light grayish-yellow brown to brownish-pink color (no longer in common use; now considered offensive because of the cultural implications of its association with white skin).

1531: As an artistic euphemism for naked, use was first applied to sculpture first emerged in the 1610s but the term not common in painting until the mid-nineteenth century when the idea of "the nude" was recognized as a genre.  The origin of the use in painting in the sense of "the representation of the undraped human figure in visual art" is said to date from 1708 and be derived from the French nud, an obsolete variant of nu (naked, nude, bare) also from the Latin nūdus.  The phrase idea of being in the nude (in a condition of being unclothed) emerged in the 1850s in parallel with the use in art criticism.

The adjective nude in legal use dates from the 1530s and meant "unsupported, not formally attested", the use from the Latin nūdus (naked, bare, unclothed, stripped) from the primitive Indo-European root nogw- (naked).  In legal matters it was typically applied in contract law (hence the "nude contract") and, by extension, the general sense of "mere, plain, simple" emerged twenty years later.  is attested from 1550s. In reference to the human body, "unclothed, undraped," it is an artistic euphemism for naked, dating from 1610s (implied in nudity) but not in common use in this sense until mid-nineteenth century.  The noun nudie (a nude show) dates from 1935 while the much earlier noun nudification (making naked) was from 1838, presumably a direct borrowing of the French nudification which had been in use since 1833.  The practice of nudism actually has roots in Antiquity but nudist (as applied to both practitioners and practice) came into use only in 1929 as an adjective and noun, both influenced by the French nudiste.  The noun nudism (the cult and practice of going unclothed) also dates from 1929 and in the UK, however inaccurately, it was described as a cult of German origin which had been picked up also by the more bohemian of the French, the more respectable London press linking the practice with vegetarianism, physical exercise, pagan worship and the eating of seeds.  Nude, nudeness  & nudist are nouns & adjectives and nudity & nudism are nouns; the noun plural is nudes.

Naked (pronounced ney-kid (U) or neck-ed (non-U))

(1) Being without clothing or covering; nude.

(2) Without adequate clothing.

(3) A natural environment bare of any covering, overlying matter, vegetation, foliage, or the like.

(4) Bare, stripped, or destitute.

(5) A descriptor of the most basic version of something sometimes more elaborate or embellished.

(6) In optics, as applied to the eye, sight etc, unassisted by a microscope, telescope, or other instrument.

(7) Defenseless; unprotected; exposed.

(8) Not accompanied or supplemented by anything else.

(9) In botany, (of seeds) not enclosed in an ovary; (of flowers) without a calyx or perianth; (of branches etc) without leaves; (of stalks, leaves etc) without hairs or pubescence.

(10) In zoology, having no covering of hair, feathers, shell etc.

(11) In motorcycle design, a machine in which the frame and engine are substantially exposed by virtue of screens and fairings not being fitted.

Pre 900: From the Middle English nakede & naked (without the usual or customary covering" (of a sword etc)) from the Old English nacod (nude, bare, empty or not fully clothed); related to the Old High German nackot, the Old Norse noktr and Latin nudus; cognate with the Dutch naakt, the German nackt, the Gothic naqths; akin to the Old Norse nakinn, the Latin nūdus, the Greek gymnós and Sanskrit nagnás.  Source was the Proto-Germanic nakwathaz, also the root of the Old Frisian nakad, the Middle Dutch naket, the Old Norse nökkviðr, the Old Swedish nakuþer and the Gothic naqaþs and ultimate source the primitive European nogw (naked), related to the Sanskrit nagna, the Hittite nekumant, the Old Persian nagna, the Lithuanian nuogas, the Old Church Slavonic nagu, the Russian nagoi, the Old Irish nocht and the Welsh noeth.  As applied to qualities, actions, etc, use emerged in the early thirteenth century, the phrase “naked truth” first noted in 1585 in Alexander Montgomerie's (circa 1550-1598) The Cherry and the Slae.  The phrase “naked as a jaybird (1943) was earlier referenced as “naked as a robin” (1879); the earliest known comparative based on it was the fourteenth century “naked as a needle”.  “Naked eye” is from 1660s, the form unnecessary in the world before improvements in lens grinding technology led to the invention of telescopes and microscopes.  The adjective nakedly (without concealment, plainly, openly) was from circa 1200.  The noun nakedness was from the Old English nacedness (nudity, bareness).  Naked is a verb & adjective and nakedness & nakedhood are nouns.  The special use of naked as a noun applies to motorcycles in which case the noun plural is nakeds.

Naked motorcycles:  2010 Ducati 1098 Streetfighter (left) and 2015 MV Agusta Stradale (right).

Those with a fondness for such things can spend a long time admiring the intricacy of machines like these, the exposed pipework of exhaust systems exerting a particular fascination.  On the BMW motorcycle forums (fora for those who insist on the Latin plural) it’s not uncommon to read of longings for the factory to produce a naked version of the straight-six K1600, a machine available since 2011 only with extensive fairings, befitting its role as a “touring bike”.  What the aficionados want is to see are the curves of the six stainless exhaust headers which would be as pleasing as those on the old Benelli Sei (Six, 1973-1978).

1976 Benelli Sei 750.  This is the appeal of the naked look; it would be sad to conceal the sensuous steel beneath some sort of plastic.

The concept of the naked motorcycle is a machine reduced to its essence of a frame, wheels and an engine, thereby making it lighter than more exotically configured models which may include flashings, windshields, saddlebags or fairings.  Simple physics mean a machine with less mass accelerates, turns and stops with less demand of energy and at low speed they tend to be easier to manoeuvre, are lighter to hold up when static and certainly easier to mount on a centre-stand.  There's also the attraction there are fewer things to break, fibreglass fairings being notorious for getting cracked, scratched or broken and Perspex screens are, with age, prone to cloudiness.  The look however is why some buy naked bikes, the intricacies of the exposed mechanicals appealing especially to engineers anxious to display the quality of the frame's welding or the indefinable but real attraction of Allen-headed bolts.  They're also quick.  Although sacrificing the aerodynamic advantages gained by fairings means in some cases the naked machines can have lower top speeds, they tend to accelerate with more alacrity, offer instant responsiveness and, in street use, top speeds are now anyway rarely approached.

1936 John Deere Model B Row Crop Tractor (“Unstyled”).

The concept known to motorcyclists as the “naked” existed also in agricultural machinery, all of which presumably began in a “naked” form with protective housings added later.  As such equipment became big business in commerce, decorative embellishments would have been the last appendages to appear.  Until the 1939 model-cycle, John Deere’s (JD) row crop tractors were “naked” in execution with the steering post, radiator and most of the engine exposed, the wheels often with spokes running from hub to rim.  However, in 1938, JD hired the industrial designer Henry Dreyfuss (1904-1972) and he created the shapes of the sheet metal which was added to cover many of the exposed areas, including the radiator, the new grill unmistakably from the art deco era and perhaps influenced by the memorable “coffin-nosed” Cords (810-812, 1936-1937).  Mr Dreyfuss’s distinctive radiator cowling was for generations a signature element of many of JD’s Tractors.

1956 John Deere Model 60 Row Crop Tractor (“Styled”).

At the time, such ventures were thought “styling” rather than “designing” so the new JD ranges came to be dubbed the “Styled” and the predecessors retrospective this became the “Unstyled” and also a marker of the new was the use of solid steel wheels to replace the spoke units.  Although heavier and using more steel, the solid wheels were cheaper to produce because they eliminated the use of much labor.  JD’s switch to “Styled” versions was phased in over several years with the models “D” & “G” being the last to appear in the original “naked” configuration.  JD and Mr Dreyfuss put effort and capital into the “Styled” project and as the company’s product line for decades indicated, they were well-pleased with the result and no doubt would not have predicted that early in the twenty-first century, with vintage tractors a collectable item (and definitely there are identifiable cults among the calling), there would be those who would take a 1942  “Styled” JD and lovingly transform it into an “Unstyled”.

Trimline phone in white, available also in designer colors.  Western Electric's original Trimline was available in 36 finishes (33 shades plus faux teak or walnut and the obviously daring “Transparent”) including JD’s signature green & yellow.

Although his name remains well-known in the field, Henry Dreyfuss is somewhat neglected in the public imagination although his breadth was remarkable, encompassing both industrial and consumer products ranging from vacuum cleaners, typewriters and alarm clocks to heavy locomotives, tractors and office buildings.  His most enduring contribution to daily American life was his involvement in the design of telephone handsets, his models for Western Electric serving as standard household and office fixtures between the 1940s and 1990s while the wall-mountable Trimline (1965) and twelve-digit touch-phone (1968) to this day remain available as retro items.

Nude or naked?

In many places the words may correctly be used interchangeably.  In law, a nude and a naked contract are the same, a pact which is unenforceable because if doesn’t possess all the elements required to be valid.  The legal maxim nuda pactio obligationem non parit signifies a naked promise which is a promise without anything being provided in return.  Nuda pactio obligationem non parit thus does not create a legal obligation.

The Nude: A Study in Ideal Form (1956) by Kenneth Clark, Bollingen Series, Pantheon Books, New York, 1956.

Lord Clark (Kenneth Clark, 1903-1983), a cultural elitist of a kind now perhaps either extinct or rendered silent by a less deferential culture, opened The Nude: A Study in Ideal Form by noting naked implied something embarrassing yet nude “…carries, in educated usage, no uncomfortable overtone.”  Clark certainly wrote for an “educated” audience and his view was there were works of art in which there were nudes but other depictions were just variations of nakedness for whatever purpose.  The nude, he concluded, “…is not the subject of art, but a form of art.”  In critical circles that's now mostly the accepted orthodoxy but since Antiquity not all elites (even the “educated” ones) have shared the view and it wasn't just medieval popes who sought to cover up the unclothed, sometimes with draping and sometimes fig leaves, all judiciously placed.  Other have been more destructive, burning or reducing to rubble “that which should offend thine eye”. 

Highly qualified content provider Busty Buffy (b 1996) who, as is done in her profession, appears sometimes “in the nude” although Lord Clark would have called that state of undress: “nakedness”.

In other words, the models in men's magazines were photographed naked while figures rendered in fine art were part of the tradition of the nude.  Photographers who thought their work artistic didn't agree and the onset of cultural relativism means such debates, whatever opinions may be held, are now rare.  However, the adoption by some that nude was something to used exclusively about works of art dates only from the eighteenth century, a movement led by critics and the commercial art industry which wanted the English market again to start buying the many nudes available for sale but which, even before the Victorian era, had fallen from fashion.

New York Magazine, February 2008 (Spring Fashion Issue).

Bert Stern’s (1929-2013) nude photo shoot of Marilyn Monroe (1926–1962) was commissioned by Vogue magazine and shot over three days, some six weeks before her death.  In book form, the images captured were compiled and published as The Last Sitting (first edition, William Morrow and Company (1982) ISBN 0-688-01173-X).  Stern reprised his work in 2008 with Lindsay Lohan, the photographs published in February 2008’s spring fashion issue of New York magazine.  Stern chose the medium of forty-six years earlier, committing the images to celluloid rather than using anything digital.  The reprised sessions visually echoed the original with a languorous air though the diaphanous fabrics were draped sometimes less artfully than all those years ago.  He later expressed ambivalence about the shoot, hinting regret at having imitated his own work but the photographs remain an exemplar of peak-Lohanary.

First published in 1968, New York magazine is now owned by Vox media and, unlike many, its print edition still appears on surviving news-stands.  The editorial focus has over the decades shifted, the most interesting trend-line being the extent to which it could be said to be very much a “New York-centred” publication, something which comes and goes but the most distinguishing characteristic has always been a willingness (often an eagerness) to descend into pop-culture in a way the New Yorker's editors would have distained; it was in a 1985 New York cover story the term “Brat Pack” first appeared.  Coined by journalist David Blum (b 1955) and about a number of successful early twenty-something film stars, the piece proved controversial because the subjects raised concerns about what they claimed was Blum’s unethical tactics in obtaining the material.  The term was a play on “Rat Pack” which in the 1950s had been used of an earlier group of entertainers although Blum also noted another journalist's coining of “Fat Pack”, used in restaurant-related stories.

Lindsay Lohan, Playboy magazine cover, January/February 2012.

Nudity & nakedness are defined by both context & circumstances.  The cover photograph for Lindsay Lohan's 2012 Playboy shoot was, in the narrow technical sense, ambiguous because the chair could have been concealing a pair of delicate lace knickers.  Importantly, even though there are stilettos on the feet, this is still a nude shot because, in this context, shoes don't count; everybody knows that.

Actually, in the context of nude shots it’s probably more correct to say stilettos can be part of the construct of "the nude", the shoes having a long history as an element in such photo sessions, the connotation well-understood.  For that reason, the motif was the one addition to a “nude pin-up calendar” published in 2010 by EIZO Corporation (株式会社, EIZO Kabushiki-gaisha), a Japanese visual technology company which began in 1968 as a television manufacturer.  The name EIZO is an unaltered use of the Japanese 映像 (eizō) (image).  As electronics became progressively cheaper and more powerful there was a proliferation in the use of screens for many purposes and EIZO responded by diversifying into products such as arcade game hardware, computer monitors, VCRs (video cassette recorders) and cassette players.  In 2002, a range of monitors for medical imaging was introduced and the novel calendar appeared to promote its radiological devices.

Eizo Pin-up calendar, 2010.

Advertising Agency: Butter, Berlin & Duesseldorf, Germany
Creative Director: Matthias Eickmeyer
Art Director: Nadine Schlichte
Illustrator/CGI: Carsten Mainz
Copywriter: Reinhard Henke

The theme of the calendar was a model scanned in twelve stereotypical “pin-up” poses, the young lady nude except for her stilettos with the images in the form of classic X-Ray film.  What that meant was the model was in a sense more naked than most nudes because all that was visible (except for the stilettos) was the skeleton and an adumbrated outline of the skin; like the more “artistic” pornography, much was achieved by having a viewer’s mind “fill in the gaps” as it were.  It attracted much interest but it soon was revealed no model was irradiated in the making of the calendar, the images all created with CGI (computer-generated imagery).  The concept came from Berlin-based creative agency Butter and in terms of brand-recognition was an outstanding success because before images of the calendar went viral, it’s doubtful many outside the Japanese electronics industry had heard of EIZO and their highly-regarded monitors.

What a stiletto imposes on the wearer’s “metatarsophalangeal joint between the metatarsal and proximal phalangeal bones” attracted some comment.  It seems a small price to pay for the pleasure men gain from seeing a foot in these classic shoes.

Being the internet, the images were of course deconstructed even before Butter revealed the truth.  Those well acquainted with medical imaging pointed out it was obvious they were digital composites because some things appeared as “white” when they should have been “black”, Miss July’s nipples apparently an obvious clue (for those with a trained eye) while others pointed out a “conspicuous absence of bowel gas and pulmonary vascularity.”  What the careful analysis of the images did proved was just how well-trained those eyes must be because (presumably) no radiologists have ever before had to assess subjects imaged in quite these positions.

Butter's “No model was harmed in the making of EIZO's calendar” explanation of the production process: (1) The wireframe skeleton (top left) and skin (top right), (2) Rendering the skeleton (middle left) and skin (middle right), (3) Combining and inverting the skin & skeleton renderings (bottom right) and (4) the final image after detail editing.   It was at stage (4) that, had a trained consultant been on hand, something like the color of Miss July's nipples would have been corrected but that seems a minor quibble about what was an imaginative project.

In high fashion, there has for some time been pressure on the industry (in Europe in some jurisdictions this has even assumed a legislative form) to move away from the use of untypically (even unusually) thin models on catwalks and in advertising in favor of those with bodies more representative of the population.  Although it's obvious this has resulted in something of a "quota-system" of "plus-sized" models, to date the industry has proved remarkably adept in keeping the catwalks and photo-shots "thin" and unattributed sources within the agencies have been quoted as saying they are still requested by the fashion houses and publications to supply the traditional shape with "just enough" of the larger types added (thrown-in, as it were).  So, in an era when the "please do not feed the models" meme cut a bit close to the bone, to reassure the internet their calendar had required no model to be exposed to a high-dose of radiation, Butter published pictures of the physical wireframes constructed for the CGI modelling; while that proved she was all pixels and there was no exploitation, a feminist critique would still detect the gratuitous objectification of the female form.  Still, neither agency or client could resist the tagline: “The EIZO Medical pin-up calendar – just like EIZO monitors – really does show every detail.”

Nude bras by Flora & Fauna (left) and Capeizo (right).

The concept of the “nude bra” was one of the unanticipated consequences of the emergence of DEI (diversity, equality & inclusion) as part of the West’s linguistic and cultural framework.  The beige bra has long been an industry staple and although the products are sometimes described as a “boring beige bra”, their usual qualities (comfortable, supportive and unobtrusive) made them an “everyday essential”.  However, the functional, if unexciting, garments tended once to be marketed as “skin-tone” which obviously was intrinsically exclusionary because it implied skin was “beige” and thus one of the many examples of “white privilege”.  Accordingly, mostly the industry shifted to value-free descriptors such as beige, black, brown, green, grey, ivory, pink, purple, red, white etc.  The purpose of a nude bra is to be nearly imperceptible under clothing, achieved by the fabric as closely as possible matching the skin tone and the obvious implication is what is a nude bra for one might be quite the opposite for another.  Glamour has a a helpful on-line guide based on the idea of skin's undertones able to be classified as cool, warm, or neutral and notes that while in underwear "black" and "white" tend to be universal, colors like beige or brown are spectrums and there are variations, both between manufacturers and even within their ranges,  That's good because even within a construct like "black skin" or "white skin", there are variations so ideally the selection of a nude bra will involve a consumer comparing fabric with flesh.