Friday, May 8, 2009

knees

why is it that we only see images of WOMEN on their knees?  in the last 3 months, i can clearly cite three artistic expressions of this tableau, and yet i can’t call to mind a single image, artistic or otherwise, of a man on his knees.  wait…..not just knees, on all fours.  all three images had women on hands AND knees……the first, i encountered in a glossy magazine, don’t remember which one, but it was spotlighting some hip director or designer who felt compelled to have the glass top of his coffee table rest on the back of a bent over bright white mannequin girl, a la ‘a clockwork orange’.  maybe the fact that she was so obviously plastic was supposed to negate the taste of subservience it left in my mouth.  bet he relishes putting his feet on top.  the second image of late came from a movie i absolutely loved and highly recommend called elegy.  at the end of the movie, a particular photograph is commented upon, and the image is that of a woman on all fours, her head tucked sightlessly behind her shoulders……it has a privacy of sorts, in that you only see curve of buttock, no indiscreet cheap thrill, but i was left feeling that i’d met a fellow human in a very nameless, compromising position, and i wondered if she felt as vulnerable hanging there as i did looking at her.  the third came from a surprising direction, encountered in the woods as it was, (on the grounds of cheekwood) after crossing through a bamboo forest and an elegantly peaceful zen garden.  this woman on all fours is giant in proportion, her legs spread at an arc and angle that we females only use for one activity, her mounds of breasts hanging pertly near her bracing arms, her enormous head whimsically expressed as…..a rabbit’s.  does the wildness of the head, the juxtaposition of human and animal distract you sufficiently from the overtly sexual posture of this female body? does it imply her chances of unadulterated survival out here are about as good as a rabbit’s in the wild in that particular position?  i’m not sure…..but i do know i’m tired of running into women on their knees.  adam, quit blaming your shit on eve, and eve…..quit trying to save yourself with pleasing. 

1 comment:

  1. Might end up posting this twice, but technology ain't my thing...

    Have you ever checked out the works of Artemisia Gentileschi? She's one of my top three all-time favorite painters. Might not find any men on their knees, but there are plenty of other terminally compromising positions.

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