Happy Frigg and Freya’s Day!

Disclaimer:  The topics covered in Freya’s Chambers include serious discussions of sex, sexuality and related issues.  If it isn’t your thing; you can move along, otherwise enjoy and feel free to discuss.  Given the nature of some subjects be prepared for nude images as there may be some.  I avoid genitalia as a general rule but is not always possible.

Discussion:

If there is any liberation from an artistic point of view to be found in leaving my faith, it is the eradication of feeling shame for my own body or the shame I am supposed to have in religion at looking at other people’s bodies.  I think art as a human expression of life is something I appreciate more.  I appreciated the beauty of the human body before but now I can do so without reservation and looking over my shoulder.

Of course, where this idea of beauty comes from is a debatable point if you look at it from an evolutionary perspective.  In truth, if somebody pleases you in other ways you might see them as more beautiful than they are.  Love has a way of minimizing flaws and enhancing that which is good.  At some point, we became naked apes and that nakedness has become attractive to us.   Biologically speaking we may have gravitation toward having a healthy mate with which we want to procreate and those characteristics that in a human body that indicate health and start to see them as beautiful.

This doesn’t diminish the spiritual side fo beauty and the wonder and awe we can have at how we are constructed as human beings.  I think artists that can capture this regardless of the medium are the ones that we admire the most. Those are the artists that can present this humanity of ours and get us to appreciate it.

Perhaps it is even more wonderful when they place that human form in environments that are mundane.  It reminds us that human beauty is all around us. That our own bodies are beautiful and not anything to be ashamed of in truth.

Looking at the past we can see it in the art that has survived.  That the human condition is best expressed in the nude form.  There is no hiding emotion or the feelings that are being conveyed because we recognize them in ourselves.  Who hasn’t looked at some art piece of the past depicting a nude form and looking at the posture and hasn’t immediately identified with the emotions and human condition expressed.

Ultimately the human form in the nude, whenever it is expressed is probably the most human thing about us humans. It is something we do to express our humanity to depict ourselves as a race without trappings and still find ourselves beautiful.  We find our own humanity in nude art the most and it is what makes us truly human.

I have waxed poetic long enough, hope you enjoyed it.

I remain,

The Rabyd Skald – Wandering Soul, Bard, and Philosopher. The Grey Wayfarer.

Skaal!!!