Sensual & Erotic
Tuesday, April 12, 2016
Living in the twilight of a former photographic career I
find myself, ever more, thinking about the meaning of words. This is natural as
I have more time to reflect and fewer worries with no deadlines to meet.
Long ago I determined that pornography (my personal take)
was photography or any other art done in bad taste. In the past I attempted to
shoot pornography but every time something inside of me would restrain me from
going any further.
Of late I have been giving lots of reflection to the
meanings of three words that somehow are related but still convey nuances of
difference. These are erotic, sensual and sexy. I would immediately state that
sexy has to be applied to living person while the other two, in particular
sensual can go both ways. Sensual can describe a piece of art, music, dance but
also a person. The word erotic is a two-way word in which that which we may be
exposed to will trigger a response in our head and we might think, “That’s
erotic.”
It seems that of the three words the most elegant (safe,
too?) is the word sensual.
The word had me thinking all night after I scanned the two colour negatives I took of Bronwen Marsden a couple of years ago applying makeup. Also of one of Patrice Bilawka. I was thinking why it is that I find a woman making herself up (particularly in front of a mirror) to be most sensual.
As a young boy, when my father left our house (I was 8) I
spent most of it with women, my mother and my grandmother. Once we moved to
Mexico in 1954 it was the same. During all that time I lived (I like the
Spanish word convivir) with women and
was privy to many of the things that women do in privacy.
Since I have memory I remember my mother sitting in front
of a mirror struggling with her hair (she complained it was too straight) and
wrapping it around a fake hair do-nut for a hairdo that was most fashionable in
the late 40s. It resembled the one that Eva Perón made famous. In front of that
mirror I watched my mother apply makeup.
This was so because our Melián house in Buenos Aires was
much too small for me to have a separate room. But by the time I was almost 8
my father spruced up the cuarto de
servicio and I ended up with my private room.
In Mexico City my mother and grandmother would doll
themselves up for parties. They would take out the little strongbox and decide
which jewellery (purchased by my grandfather Tirso in Paris) they would wear. I
have a clear memory of my mother using Chanel Number 5 (in later years it was
Joy). She would moisten the back of her ear lobes. Then both women would stand
in front of a mirror. I seemed to have always been there.
And so, watching a woman apply makeup in front of a
mirror is both a memory of my mother and grandmother and I will not consult
Freud to decide why it is erotic (yes erotic!). And more so if I am in back (it
provides a degree of protection, a removal from the scene) of my camera.
