mentalblog.com comments:
What is it with the feet, anyway. Reminds me of Restif de la Bretonne.
very Rembrandt inspired with the cross hatching motif
There is an apocryphal anecdote where someone answered, "once is an experiment but twice is perversion," in response to a second invitation from De Sade to join him in an orgy. (Was it Voltaire?)
Sado-masochism, bestiality, pederasty...Rembrandt, my ass!
All De Sade orgies where in his mind while he was imprisoned.
But Rembrandt my ass, for sure.
PS Truman, you are a shrink. Isn't this a great material?
It has been claimed, by the way, that Restif was the first to use the word "communism" in print. See the wikipedia.
Gandali, intereresting about Communism.
By the way it is not about feet. It castigation of a man to the ground. Feet just happen to be on the same level. What did Restif de la Bretonne do with feet?
Tzemach,
I think you are right that Bruno Schulz portrays the degradation of a man to the lowest bedrock ground level. But there is also an aspect of foot fetishism in there, and that is where Restif de la Bretonne comes in. He is sometimes considered the first pornographer (goes well with being the first man to use the word "communism" in print, doesn't it?) and he was very into foot fetishism and shoe fetishism.
gandalin, communism and foot fetish is pretty close, as you know.
Yes I dimly recall reading Karl Marx in the introduction to Das Kapital on the fetishized commodity . . . money . . .
I was talking about technique not taste we understand that it is the wolf in sheep's clothing - I was just admiring the dress
No point in waxing philosophical about erotic-pornographic art as it has been around for millennia; "nothing new under the sun." It's kind of embarrassing that it took something prurient and titillating to wake up this blog but on the other hand (I swear no puns are intended, I swear!) sexuality is synonymous with regeneration and perhaps it is appropriate that this entry should herald the re-birth of Mental Blog after an attempted abortion followed by a long gestation.
PORNOGRAPHY is death to art. Iris Murdoch
comments and waked up blog are not the same. porno and art are not the same as well.
Well I had heard of Bruno Schulz of course, but I had never read his stories, I regret to say, and I was blissfully unaware that he was a foot-fetishing masochist. So once again, I learned something unexpected and interesting from Tzemach Atlas. This blog has been unique on the intarweb, in my opinion.
gandalin, i didn't read it. you are saying it came up in his stories?
No, I haven't read Bruno Schulz I am sorry to say. The foot-fetish masochism is evident in the pictures you posted.
i disagree. the engraving are not about feet.
Au contraire, mon cher.
Finely modeled feet are prominent in every one of those engravings.
Beginning from the top down, in the second, the woman is caressing the man's face with her foot, in the 3rd, the man is caressing the woman's right foot while she presses down with her left, in the 4th, the woman and the spectators are examining her foot, in the 7th, the man is approaching the woman's bare left foot, with the shoe prominently displayed in the foreground.
Foot and shoe fetishism is the major theme here.
Thsi theme is discussed in greater length in the article by Nella Cassouto reproduced at the brunoschulzart site to which you link.
Your inclination and ability to parse the fine points of this man's debauched perspective reminds me of Renfield who was a similarly discriminating connoisseur - of insectivora.
In dismissing the comparison to Rembrandt I also meant to include artistic ability. Where Rembrandt was able to capture the enduring dignity that lies within humankind this creature, in stark contrast, resorts to mediocre caricature to portray his perverse cartoonish view of the world.
Truman,
I think you are probably right about this poor tormented soul. I will have to read his book to be sure, however.
In my ignorant, innocent imagination, I had thought of Bruno Schulz as a transcendent genius . . . another Kafka, perhaps.
The pictures, however, are just sick.
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