Erotic
photo art has lost much of its exquisite soul since Playboy and other
girlie monthlies repackaged the human body for mass-market consumption.
Ever-bigger print runs of increasingly grotesque photos of women in
every imaginable position have edged out emotion and reduced erotica to
mere physical sex appeal. Only in the late 1970s did great men like
Helmut Newton and Mapplethorpe come to the fore with high-quality art
photography. As leading expert and collector of erotic art Alexandre
Dupouy points out, "In the past 40 years, most photographers captured
women's bodies in sexually arousing positions, with only a handful of
true artists trying to capture the erotic aura that women radiate."
This book is a journey through a century of collector's photographs
that set forth how our perception of woman has developed over time and
how the erotic dimensions of modesty and tenderness find expression on
celluloid. The author goes on to provide a tightly reasoned rationale
that stakes out the hallmarks of a true "French School of Erotic Art
Photography." The models have a distinctly natural appeal that dates
back to a time when there were no plastic surgeons around to reshape
models before they faced the shutter. This alone makes each photo a
sincerely emotional experience.
