(Last Updated On May 24, 2022)
Here’s another contribution by Moko. Below is a photo taken for a political campaign of Rudolf Werner in 1972. This stark composition appears to be a popular motif in postwar Germany. The contrast between the innocent and vulnerable children against the ominous gas masks representative of industrial war-craft is compelling. I recall a similar image in the film Peppermint-Frieden (1983). This photo originally appeared in the German publication Spiegel.
Charles Wilp – Kandidaten-Foto für den Bundestagswahlkampf (1972)
The emphasis on girls in this photo might tell us something about which sex was expected to get more positive attention. There are nine children in the photo. The child held by the candidate is a girl, and four of the five children in the front row are girls. The child on the right is a boy, but unlike the girls, his hands cover his genitals. The child behind him is also covering the genitals, and may also be a boy. The sex of the other two children in the back row cannot be determined. Even if both of them are boys, there is still of majority of girls in the photo, and girls are in the more prominent positions.
There is not a lot of detail here so it may be that the girls were airbrushed a bit. Some comments have suggested that physically there is little difference between girl and boy children up to a certain age. I have commented to people in the past is that my main objection to the male form as an artistic object, is that his genitals break up the “line” of the body.
But also it should be acknowledged that girls are perceived as more innocent and vulnerable and so you get more bang for your buck with an image that has mostly girls. -Ron
Ron, I found your observation on the male form as contrasted with the female form to be interesting.
Speaking only for myself, I find women’s bodies to be beautiful, and men’s bodies not to be beautiful. But in my view that absolutely does not apply to children younger than the age of puberty.
It is obvious that Europeans are far less prudish than Americans when it comes to innocent, beautiful nude child images in political advertising:
https://pigtailsinpaint.org/2019/10/random-images-partito-comunista-italiano/