InfoD-Cafe: "Photoshopped to Perfection"

[Rob Waller]

Funnily enough this issue was in the news in the UK today, with a  
political party calling for the banning of unrealistically airbrushed  
images in material aimed at young girls - http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/news/dont-beef-up-keiras-bust-lib-dems-take-aim-at-advertisers-over-altered-images-1766549.html

A commentator on the BBC mentioned a famous instance of this from  
British history - the Hans Holbein portrait of Anne of Cleves  
commissioned to interest Henry VIII in marrying her. He didn't fancy  
her as much when they actually met.


__________________________________

Rob Waller
Department of Typography & Graphic Communication
University of Reading




On 3 Aug 2009, at 22:18, Deborah Taylor-Pearce wrote:

> Cafe,
>
> The article
>
> 	"Photoshopped to Perfection: The graphics editing tool is
> 	praised for making people look their best and dissed for
> 	setting the bar too high"
>
> was published in the _Image_ section of Sunday's _Los Angeles Times_
> (2 Aug. 2009) and is available online at URL:
>
> http://www.latimes.com/features/lifestyle/la-ig-photoshop2-2009aug02,0,3129812.story
>
> I found the piece by reporter Jeannine Stein especially relevant, as I
> struggle to finish my new write-up on 17th-century portraiture and
> problems of representation (e.g., the commercially-successful artist
> Sir Peter Lely was similarly critiqued by some 17th-century
> contemporaries for beautifying his female subjects -- especially those
> trademark "bedroom eyes" which he gave to female and male sitters
> alike, "So that Mr Walker Ye Painter swore Lilly's Pictures was all
> Brothers & Sisters").
>
> The artist's technologies of choice may have changed over the
> centuries, but most of the issues surrounding human portraiture
> (aesthetics vs. truth, the politics of flattery and physiognomic art,
> etc.) are pretty much the same. ;-)
>
> Deborah
> _____
>
> Deborah Taylor-Pearce
> dtp at she-philosopher.com
>
>
>
>
>
>
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