About Pip Starr

I am the founder and original editor-in-chief of Pigtails in Paint, running it initially by myself for the first few years. Then Ron joined the party, and I eventually ceded overall control of Pigtails to him, taking a back seat to focus on other things. Best decision I've ever made.

Album Cover Art – Fall 2019 Edition

And so we come to another album cover post, the last one having been posted the summer of last year. This post was largely instigated by a windfall of album cover art recently sent to us by a reader of Pigtails (thank you!), and there are definitely some lovely images here.  Not all of these are from this reader, but most of them are. It’s an all-nude/deminude edition of Album Cover Art, so let’s get started!

Edit: information for the first album has been updated. – Pip

The first is split single for he Finnish black metal band Horna and the Swedish black metal band Woods of Infinity, with relevant images on both front and back covers. I recognize both of them from the photographic anthology The Family of Children, which I have. The front cover image is by Swedish photographer Nils-Johan Norenlind, and I’ve featured it on Pigtails once already. The back cover image is from Germany-based photographer Jean-Gil Bonne, who doesn’t seem to have much representation on the web.

Nils-Johan Norenlind – Horna – Woods of Infinity (front cover)

Jean-Gil Bonne – Horna – Woods of Infinity (back cover)

Here’s a better version of the original image which isn’t marred by the Klaxon Productions logo and address stamp:

Jean-Gil Bonne – (Title Unknown)

Our next example comes from a modern psychedelic pop band called Brief Weeds who appear to have only released two albums thus far, A Very Generous Portrait and the one on which this cover image appears, Songs of Innocence and Experience (observant readers will note this title is taken from the similarly-titled Songs of Innocence and of Experience, a collection of illustrated poetry by William Blake). Indeed, the “Experience” part of this album shows another nude male/female couple, but this time they’re adults firing rifles.

Photographer Unknown – Brief Weeds – Songs of Innocence & Experience (cover)

Grunt is another Finnish band but of an altogether different sort than Horna. They’re sort of an experimental industrial noise outfit (think Throbbing Gristle but with less music). Not my thing, but I do love this cover. In fact, I think it may be my favorite out of the collection. Just a really clever layout. If you don’t count Led Zeppelin’s Houses of the Holy, which features the same two children photographed multiple times, this cover might hold the record for the number of nude children appearing on an album cover, most of them girls.

Photographer Unknown – Grunt – Myth of Blood (cover)

The front and back covers of obscure ’70s Belgian pop duo Jess & James’s The Naked (which I think was a single rather than a full album) are pretty much just reverse images of each other, but I’ll post both of them anyway, as there are some slight variations in layout and coloration in addition to the image reversal. The back cover also contained the lyrics to the main song.

Photographer Unknown – Jess & James – The Naked (front cover) (1970)

Photographer Unknown – Jess & James – The Naked (back cover) (1970)

Finally, the only album cover in the batch with a full-color cover, Pelle Carlberg‘s The Lilac Time.

Photographer Unknown – Pelle Carlberg – The Lilac Time ‎(cover) (2008)

The rest of these images come from my own collection.

Christian Death was one of the original groundbreaking goth rock bands, having been founded in 1979, at the inception of the goth scene. This cover is from an early live album, 1985’s The Decomposition of Violets, when the band was still fronted by Rozz Williams.

Photographer Unknown – Christian Death – The Decomposition of Violets (cover)

Now here’s another image we’ve seen before: the cover art (minus the encircling serpent design) is by John Bauer, one of the very first artists I profiled on Pigtails waaaay back in February of 2011. All of the images in that post appeared in the book Swedish Folk Tales, including the one used for this album cover from Norwegian black metal band/musician Mortiis. Are you detecting a trend here? Ah, the Scandinavians. What would we do without them? There seems to be two different covers for this album, but this is the relevant one. Incidentally, the title of the album, Ånden Som Gjorde Opprør, translates into English as The Spirit Who Rebelled.

John Bauer – Mortiis – Ånden som Gjorde Opprør (cover)

And finally, I’m not at all sure on the gender of the child here, but it doesn’t really matter. It’s a beautiful cover design. The image appears on the cover of Dream Child by the Finnish (yep) band Mattsson, which is fronted by Lars Eric Mattsson.

Photographer Unknown – Mattsson – Dream Child (cover)

Sublimated Sexuality in Modern Surrealist Girl Art, Part 5

Now we are in the home stretch of the Sublimated Sexuality series (only one more post and it will be completed). If you haven’t already perused them, or you wish to review the series, you can find the other parts here: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4

15) Anthropomorphism of animals and objects – With respect to anthropomorphic animals, much of what was said in the animals, masks and monsters categories applies here as well, but I think this separate category is warranted, especially as it includes non-living objects. Anthropomorphism is a common characteristic of children’s media, so it’s natural that it would also occur in pop surrealist art in which children are subjects, particularly in a darkly satirical context.

There’s something a bit leering and creepy about that moon, no?

Ana Bagayan – Moon Babies

Ana Bagayan (official site)

James Jean can always by counted on to produce excellent dreamlike imagery. Anthropomorphic flowers? Where have we seen those before? Ah, yes: Alice in Wonderland. I suspect it’s no accident that that particular story is frequently referenced,  overtly or otherwise, in this work!

James Jean – Aurelians (2016)

James Jean (official site)

Food is another thing which is often anthropomorphized in this type of art, usually with some rather morbid implications. The title in this next piece is a disturbing pun. The adorable little girl might be regarded as “eye candy” in the symbolic sense, but the cupcake’s eyes are literal eye candy, and one of them is about to be eaten!

Nicoletta Ceccoli – Eye Candy

Nicoletta Ceccoli (official site)

Kokomoo – (Title Unknown)

Deidre L. Morton (Peemonster) – Eden Dream

Rabbits are a commonly anthropomorphized animal in this art. Again, could this be an allusion to Alice? This first image certainly feels quite reminiscent of Carroll’s creation. Note too the resemblance of the rabbit’s pair of pendulums to dangling cherries.

Masaru Shichinohe – (Title Unknown)

Artnet: Masaru Shichinohe

Stephen Mackey – Magic Uncle

Stephen Mackey (official site)

16) The presence of death and decay – It makes perfect sense that references to death would also appear in this work, serving as a memento mori to remind viewers that life is short and fleeting, and that there may be an eternal afterlife in which we are judged and dealt with according to how we lived our lives, so we had better not harm anyone, especially the vulnerable . . . such as children. Furthermore, death is disgusting and frightening, so its juxtaposition with children works as another example of dissuasion by association.

Hiroyuki Mano – Stone Mirror

DeviantArt: DensenManiya

Nils Karsten – Heaven in Orange

Nils Karsten (official site)

Ana Bagayan – Heaven

Timothy Cummings – Sudden Scenario

Timothy Cummings (official site)

Audrey Kawasaki – Isabelle (2006)

Audrey Kawasaki (official site)

Jackie Skrzynski – Cold Comfort (2007)

Jackie Skrzynski (official site)

Juniper trees have a fascinating association with death and misfortune. Some may recall the Brothers Grimm fairy tale The Juniper Tree, which involves the murder of a mother and her young son. In Welsh legend cutting down a juniper tree meant the feller was bound to die, and many dream interpreters believe that dreaming of juniper trees is extremely unlucky, especially for those who are ill. Modern horror author Peter Straub also penned a story called The Juniper Tree, about a young boy who is sexually abused by a stranger at a movie theater.

Cornelia Renz – The Juniper Tree (2006)

Cornelia Renz (official site)

17) Subversion of religion and the sacred – Complimenting themes of death in this work (or in some cases contrasting against or satirizing them) is the subverting of religious themes, particularly Christianity.

Generally I try to feature only one work per artist in each category, since there are so many worthy artists, but these two paintings by Amy Crehore absolutely have to be featured together as they tell an amusing/disturbing little story. While you’d think it’s the demon who is the true threat here, the second piece in the series reveals who really wields the power!

Amy Crehore – Story of Lolita, Part 1

Amy Crehore – Story of Lolita, Part 2

The Art of Amy Crehore (official site)

Scott G. Brooks – The Heavenly Virtues: Bravery (Girl with Pet Goat) (2004)

Scott G Brooks Studios (official site)

Teiji Hayama – Ekho

Asia Contemporary Art: Teiji Hayama

Stu Mead – First Communion (2004)

Stu Mead (official site)

Heidi Taillefer – Sovereign Side (2008)

Heidi Taillefer (official site)

Mike Cockrill – Nativity (2004)

Mike Cockrill (official site)

Mark Ryden does religious satire so frequently that I had a tough time narrowing it down to just one piece. Nevertheless . . .

Mark Ryden – The Angel of Meat

Mark Ryden (official site)

This next piece is both a subversion of a well-known biblical event (Abraham’s attempted sacrifice of his son Isaac) and a commentary by the artist on the nature of his own work, since dolls feature prominently in his paintings and sculptures. We will definitely see him again in the final installment of this series.

Mikel Glass – Sacrifice of Subject Matter

Mikel Glass (official site)

Jana Brike – Two Wounded Angels on the Beach

Squarespace: Jana Brike

Breathing Life Into Art: Auguste Rodin’s Man and His Thought

There are a handful of post-Renaissance painters that nearly everyone knows by name—van Gogh, Picasso, Whistler perhaps—but for modern sculpture there is really only one name that non-art geeks consistently recognize: Auguste RodinThe Thinker is easily Rodin’s most recognizable piece, and one of the most famous artworks of all time.

One of Rodin’s lesser known works is Man and His Thought, which depicts a powerful adult male figure “kissing” the chest of what appears to be a young adolescent girl.  Radical feminists and professional outrage-mongers who fail to grasp the symbolism implied in the work’s title might propose this to be little more than a three-dimensional image of an adult male sexually abusing a young female.  That would be wrong (in both senses of the word).

Auguste Rodin – Man and His Thought (1896-1900) (1)

Auguste Rodin – Man and His Thought (1896-1900) (2)

Auguste Rodin – Man and His Thought (1896-1900) (3)

Several of Rodin’s works deal with man’s—and especially artists’—relationship with his own creative impulses.  This piece is one of them, as the sylphic being half-emerged from the stone represents both the source of creation (inspiration) and the creation itself (art).  Like the myth of Pygmalion, to which this work alludes, the artist breathes life directly into coarse dead stone, and out of it emerges a figure of lithe feminine beauty, shown as a young girl because she is not yet fully formed, an artwork still in the process of being born.

Auguste Rodin – Man and His Thought (1896-1900) (4)

Auguste Rodin – Man and His Thought (1896-1900) (5)

Auguste Rodin – Man and His Thought (1896-1900) (6)

This is not to say that there is no sexual element here at all.  Does the artist have an erotic relationship with his own work?  Certainly Pymalion did.  Other women failed to satisfy him, and so he created his own in Galatea, who is both his metaphorical child and his lover.  (Indeed, there is even a blatantly incestuous interpretation of the myth by poet and classical studies scholar Robert Graves.)  That might be enough for some critics to advance the idea that Man and His Thought justifies parent-child incest.  Of course, it doesn’t.  Rather, it implies that an artist’s relationship with his creative output is inherently incestuous in a psychological sense.

Auguste Rodin – Man and His Thought (1896-1900) (7)

Auguste Rodin – Man and His Thought (1896-1900) (8)

Though the two figures are mismatched in size, they seem to fit together quite snugly, suggesting that they were made for each other the way Pygmalion and Galatea are.  Well, certainly one of them was made to fit the other!

Bonus: Here is a lovely illustrated tribute to Rodin’s sculpture by Sharon C. McGovern:

Sharon C. McGovern – Tribute to Rodin’s ‘Man and His Thought’

Daddy’s Girls and Beautiful Boys: Children’s Sexual Encounters in Graphic Media

WARNING: The following article contains images of child sexual abuse which may offend sensitive viewers.

[20210617] I am pleased to announce that because we are now no longer in UK jurisdiction, the two images that were removed have been restored. The only versions I could find online were a bit smaller but you can still get the idea and Pip is sending me the comic book for me to make new scans within the next few days.

[20191118] It is ironic and unfortunate that graphic media cannot do its job in the name of protecting people’s sensibility. Due to police action and the UK courts, we must temporarily err on the side of caution in order to protect this site and its host. Therefore, until the legal matter is settled, it will be necessary to remove a Debbie Dreschler image and one other from this post temporarily. My apologies go to our readers who are accustomed to “seeing things for themselves” instead of assuming that the government and courts have our best interests at heart. The text is not at issue at the moment and has been kept intact. -Ron, Editor-in-Chief

You’ll have to excuse me, because this article will be long. But I think it’s warranted and long overdue.

I must confess, my recent discussions with a respondent to our blog who goes by the deceptively mundane, everyman moniker “a parent” has gotten under my skin in a big way. The underlying accusation, though not put into these words exactly, is that Pigtails in Paint is guilty of “sexualizing” children. This we do, according to “a parent”, by repeatedly claiming—whether doing this directly or indirectly he does not say—that children are worthy objects of the sexual attention of adults, or in terms of art, by attempting to “normalize” what some critics refer to as the “pedophilic gaze.”

Let me be absolutely clear here: I object nearly outright to the concept of the “sexualized” child, as well as to “normalization.” These words are loaded language, armchair psychobabble/political spin designed to instill by default the opposite notion that the “normal” child is by nature asexual, a being entirely without carnal thoughts, feelings or motivations, their minds and bodies veritable blank slates upon which only pubescence justly and impartially writes the erotic code that makes them into what we designate in our culture as a full-on adult.

The problem with this viewpoint is three-fold: first and most obviously, there is a ton of evidence that contradicts this supposition, as almost any reputable expert on children can tell you; second, it neglects to incorporate the fact that authorities—parents especially—control the dialogue and shape children sexually whether they believe they are doing so or not; second, it ignores the reality that the moral panic surrounding child sexuality, child sexual abuse and pedophilia (which are related but not inseparable issues) have grown in strength over the last few decades, to the point that we now have an aegrescit medendo situation where children and adults alike are being harmed as much or more by the overreaction of society as by the folk devils to which it is responding.

In one of my replies to “a parent” I held up as evidence for this two major examples: the side effects of conservative regions where girls are more likely to get pregnant because of lack of decent sex education, lack of access to birth control, and so on (not to mention getting stuck with a baby before she’s ready thanks to harsh anti-abortion measures in those places), and kids themselves getting arrested as sex offenders after being caught up in sexting cases. I will add to those the following:

  • The sex offender registry, which has resulted in more problems than it’s solved, foremost among them that it creates a perfect hit list for legal, physical and social persecution.
  • The courtesy stigma, name-calling, threats, and educational shutting-out and funding issues that many scholars and researchers face when exploring these issues, especially when their conclusions do not match social and cultural expectations or feed into the biases of politicians.
  • The growth of a powerful and unduly influential victim culture surrounding sexual abuse which often exploits the moral panic for its own gain at the expense of many innocent people and organizations.
  • The blatant exploitation of the sexual abuse moral panic by political entities and demagogues, particularly on the right but also on the left, utilizing it as propaganda against their political rivals. (See: Pizzagate and Qanon)
  • The largely unhelpful “stranger danger” myth, which invests in children a lifelong dread of mostly benign strangers and takes the focus off the real source of most sexual abuse, the child’s own family.
  • The unhealthy guilt complexes, body image issues and fear of intimacy that many children learn as a result of being taught that good/normal children are sexually (read: morally) pure, a personification many of them are simply unable to live up to, and which our society goes to great lengths to enforce, one way or another.
  • And, of course, the irreparable harm that has been done to artists such as Graham Ovenden and Jock Sturges and their subjects, forever tainted by their names being dragged through the thoroughly raked muck—not to mention art as a whole, the entire history of children in art being reinterpreted through the child pornography/child exploitation lens, and many artists unwilling to tackle what has traditionally been a favorite subject for them, the nude child or youth, due to fears of social stigma and/or legal reprisals.

There are others, but these are quite sufficient, I think, to get the point across. We at Pigtails are primarily concerned with the last one.

The thing about “a parent” is that he comes across as quite reasonable in general, and that concerns me more than a thousand trolls posting death threats or idiotic insults ever could. Those types of people tend to be so broadly ignorant and clownishly obnoxious that their take on these matters cannot be taken seriously. On the other hand, “a parent” has positioned himself as an admirer of simple child nudes, which is understandable. As I have said on a number of occasions, child nudity cannot be equated with sexuality across the board. The conflation of those two things is mainly a Western conceit, predominantly in the Anglophone West: Great Britain, Australia, Canada and the United States. So far, so good.

Another thing is that “a parent” does not believe in the asexual child (or so he claims), and so none of what I wrote above is directly applicable to him. But he plays into this prejudice regardless, because one cannot extricate the idea that children are asexual from the position that they should be seen as such when we look at art featuring them. How is “a parent” able to compartmentalize these two conflicting ideas? His argument basically boils down to this: the artist and the art observer can think such things in an abstract way, but an artist who acknowledges this directly in their work is in violation of the all-important taboo and that must remain forbidden lest it endanger children. In essence, then, intellectual recognition of this scientific fact is fine, but woe to the artist who explores this concept directly in his or her work, who has the unmitigated gall to present the sexual child in imagery. That can only be, according to “a parent”, a sign of a pedophilic wet dream expressed on paper or canvas. Artists who present children erotically must be pedophiles, or why else would they create such work? Moebius? Pedophile. Tamburini and Liberatore? Pedophiles. Neil Gaiman? Obviously a pedophile. I mean, not only did he create the Lantiman of Sauk, he also wrote a rather stirring defense of lolicon with his essay Why Defend Freedom of Icky Speech? on his web journal.

Examples of the traditional arts (drawing, painting, sculpture—I’m purposely avoiding dipping into photography here) that either play with eroticism or where children and sexuality meet in some sense are Paul Peel’s A Venetian Bather, Jules Marie Auguste Leroux’s The Mirror, Egon Schiele’s Mädchen mit Federboa, Donatello’s David, Louis Ricardo Falero’s The Planet Venus, works by the Die Brücke collective featuring Fränzi Fehrmann, and Ramon Casas i Carbó’s Flores Deshojadas (Depetaled Flowers), to name a few. But what I want to focus on here is what all of the links in the paragraph above this one have in common: they all feature work from comics artists and writers.

More than any other medium, these have been the target of would-be censors. It’s probably no accident that the one time in American history where an artist was actually convicted on obscenity charges it was for his comics, a medium that has long been viewed as little more than children’s funny books or superhero fantasies by ignorant snobs who don’t understand it. In any case, Mike Diana‘s story is fascinating and should be studied by anyone with an interest in free speech issues and legal precedent. In the late eighties and early nineties the teenage Diana wrote and drew a series of comics with extremely gruesome content—graphic violence and mutilation, rape and child sexual abuse, incest, and likely the most damning offense in the small Florida community where he lived and worked, religious blasphemy—published them in very limited runs at his own expense, and sold them via mail to about three hundred customers around the US for two dollars a pop. Diana had the bad luck of producing his ostentatiously subversive and distasteful work at the same time as the Gainesville Ripper was operating. Diana even became a suspect in those murders, though he was eventually exonerated there. Still, the obscenity charges stuck.

While I cannot defend Diana’s work on its merits (I’m not going to share any of it here; just google it if you’re curious—honestly, it’s so badly drawn and noxious in content that it makes my head hurt to even look at it), the idea that an artist who created something which involved no actual children and that’s about as far from erotic as one can get seems patently absurd to me. I mention this case because it is the extreme, and because, far from accomplishing the goal of “protecting” children from Diana’s work, which almost certainly would’ve been ignored otherwise and slipped into obscurity, all his Kafkaesque trial and conviction really accomplished in the end was putting the spotlight on him and his atrocious art, and now any child who has access to the internet can google it for free. Diana has even had his work shown in international museums. Ho-hum.

Okay, I’ve rambled on long enough. Let’s get to the examples (besides the ones I’ve already linked to). Here is a single panel from a comic I will wait to identify. Out of context, all we can really discern about this image is that it is sexual. The female in bed is performing fellatio on a man, who hovers over her. I will clarify further, because it may not be immediately obvious: the female is a child. Take a good look at it, and withhold judgment if you can. Is this the sort of thing “a parent” would have the government censor?

Debbie Dreschler – Daddy’s Girl (panel)

Now I will identify this image. It is a single panel from the Ignatz Award-nominated semi-autobiographical comic Daddy’s Girl by Debbie Dreschler. This image comes from my own copy of the comic, the square-bound softcover first edition published in 1996 by Fantagraphics. It’s a comic that deals frankly with a young girl’s sexual abuse at the hands of . . . well, a father (not “a father”) during the late fifties and early sixties. In between episodes of sexual abuse, the girl’s life is filled with moments of irony and pathos, such as when her parents take their four children to present gifts to a poor black family during Christmas. The fact that the comic is not subtle about the abuse and does not shy away from depicting it gives Daddy’s Girl a disturbing power that simple fiction could probably never achieve. By design, you cannot look away or consider the abuse as an abstraction. Dreschler forces you to confront it head on. Here are a few pages of this sequence—called Visitors in the Night—for context.

Debbie Dreschler – Daddy’s Girl (1)

Debbie Dreschler – Daddy’s Girl (2)

Debbie Dreschler – Daddy’s Girl (3)

Debbie Dreschler – Daddy’s Girl (4)

I ask again: is this the sort of image that “a parent” would have the state censor? Perhaps. He says:

So my view is that this particular highly specific kind of expression (a drawing graphically depicting sexual abuse of a prepubescent child) should be illegal, even where there’s no proof of direct harm.

He offers a specific set of criteria by which he judges what should or should not be illegal. Many of Dreschler’s images would fall into that category by default. That would be a huge shame, because the work would lose much of its shock value without these scenes. In fact, I’d say it would be nearly impossible for this comic to exist as what it is without such scenes. Maybe “a parent” would differ on that point, but there can be little doubt that these scenes make the work more disturbing than it would otherwise be. And that is the point of them.

Says “a parent”:

Suppose, for example, there is a pen-and-ink drawing in comic-book style of graphic sexual abuse involving an older adult and a prepubescent child. And suppose the artist did not work from photographs or live models in making this drawing, so it can be claimed that there was no “real, direct” harm done. (I’m pretty sure such a thing would be illegal under our current laws, but I’m not absolutely certain, and I’m definitely no expert.) Besides serving as child pornography, what’s the purpose of such a drawing?

I offered an example which fits this description exactly. (And no, such images are not illegal per se, at least not in the US—this has been tested multiple times, and with the exception of Mike Diana, all those artists won their cases.) So, what is the purpose of such drawings? According to “a parent” they can only serve as pornography to stimulate pedophiles. I wonder what Dreschler would think of such an accusation? Maybe I should ask her.

Here is another example from a different comic, Phoebe Gloeckner‘s A Child’s Life. This too is semi-autobiographical . . . and disturbing. Gloeckner’s character Minnie Goetze is a thinly disguised stand-in for her, though Gloeckner herself has never confirmed this, referring to her work simply as fiction. That’s understandable, as she doesn’t just tell her own story—she recounts events from other girls’ lives as well, including a girl called “Tabatha”:

Phoebe Gloeckner – A Child’s Life (1998)

Is this image erotic? Would it turn some folks on? Possibly. But that is not the intent of the artist. Calling this or Dreschler’s blatant depictions of sexual abuse “child pornography” is ignorant and insulting to both of them. Alright, “a parent” might say, so biographical work which clearly isn’t designed to titillate the viewer might get a pass, but what about examples which are less obviously negative?

Okay, let’s take one from Neil Gaiman’s (that perv again!) multiple award-winning series The Sandman, from the one-off issue Ramadan, drawn by the fabulous P. Craig Russell. (Side note: I have the first three of Russell’s Fairy Tales of Oscar Wilde books, and they are absolutely gorgeous.) Ramadan is not really about child sexuality or abuse (you can read a summary of the story here if you’re interested, though I recommend reading the actual comic), but it does feature a relevant scene which I remember being somewhat controversial at the time the comic came out in the early nineties:

P. Craig Russell – The Sandman – Ramadan (detail)

Here is the full page for context:

P. Craig Russell – The Sandman – Ramadan

So now we have an example of straight fiction, nothing autobiographical here. There is a single panel (with an inset) in the whole of the story that fits our topic, and unlike Dreschler’s or Gloeckner’s comics, it does not portray it negatively. In fact, the description written by Gaiman makes the “beautiful boys” sound quite appealing. We see no actual sex there, but arguably the boys are drawn sensuously. Is this, then, child pornography? Of course it isn’t. The drawings reinforce the text, but the intent here is certainly not to arouse the viewer. They are presented as part of a larger tapestry, a lovely scene to reinforce that the narrator is a man who enjoys the pleasures of the flesh, be it women or boys. Since the story’s point-of-view character is Haroun al Raschid, the caliph of a medieval-era Middle Eastern city, it makes absolute sense that his perceptions are not modern, and that Gaiman and Russell, presenting us this scene through Haroun’s eyes, would give us boys that are sexually provocative, not presented as victims but as willing and knowing partners, even if they are technically sex slaves. Now, I’m quite sure Russell does not approve of child abuse, and I know Gaiman doesn’t. Nevertheless, it would’ve been ridiculous to offer this scene judgmentally, through modern eyes. It would’ve been obvious and clumsy, taking the reader out of the story.

“Okay, but why include the images at all? Surely they weren’t necessary,” I can hear “a parent” grumbling now. That is beside the point. It is not an artist’s job to go out of their way to avoid triggering sensitive readers. No one doubts that the abuse of young boys occurred in harems like the one described. That’s a historical fact. To gloss over that detail is to feed into political correctness, and the more artists do that, the more they will be expected to do that, until they face arrest for not doing it. Censorship will not stop where “a parent” thinks it should. It doesn’t work that way. It never has. As Gaiman himself said in Why Defend Freedom of Icky Speech?:

The Law is a huge blunt weapon that does not and will not make distinctions between what you find acceptable and what you don’t. This is how the Law is made.

Whether I find any images of children sexually provocative or not (some might find that image by Dreschler to be arousing; I certainly don’t), my tastes should not be the deciding factor on whether something is illegal or not. Nor should the tastes of “a parent”, nor should the tastes of any particular person or group of persons.

Says “a parent”:

Well, I feel that freedom of expression is very, very important. But it’s not really freedom of expression that’s at issue. It is freedom of a highly specific and narrow range of expression, namely depiction of children as objects of sexual desire. Out of all art and ideas, I think this is an exceedingly tiny slice of a huge pie. Any legislation in this area would leave the vast, overwhelming majority of artistic expression completely unimpeded.

I doubt very much that “a parent” actually believes this, or that he would stand against it if, say, adult porn was on the censor’s chopping block. Perhaps I’m wrong, but I doubt it. He adds, in defense of his view:

It’s critical to realize that child pornography is not on even ground with other “ideas.” We not talking about appealing to the thoughts or the emotions. Appealing to sexual urges–particularly to urges that must harm children if they are fully gratified–is a different basic kind of thing from other types of expression.

Okay. Disregarding for a moment the fact that this is special pleading, I have to ask why is “child pornography”—remember, we’re talking about drawings here—different? Because it is the image of a crime? No, I’ve seen actual photos of murdered children (I wish I hadn’t, but they’re out there)—those are also images of actual crimes, yet they aren’t outlawed. But images of violence do not encourage some unspecified fraction of humanity to commit more crimes, right? Do we know this for a fact? I mean, there have certainly been murderers who have claimed that violent imagery pushed them towards their own murder sprees. Who’s to say it isn’t true? Ah, but it’s a very small percentage of humanity who would be influenced to those ends, eh? Well, “a parent” himself says that pedophiles are such a meager minority that censoring images that might influence them shouldn’t be considered on the same level as other sorts of images, and he says “normal” people, which he defines as the vast majority of humanity, is appalled by such images, and certainly aren’t turned on by them. In other words, not only is he guilty of special pleading, he’s also spouting the bandwagon fallacy as a defense.

Are there folks who get off on violent imagery? Unquestionably. But “a parent” suggests that sex is somehow very different from other provocative concepts like violence, because it doesn’t appeal to thoughts or emotions. Well, what the ever-loving fuck does it appeal to then? A base drive? Is violence not a base drive in us too? Are some people not compelled by their lizard brains to violently destroy that which they hate and fear? Of course they are. But that’s different, because . . .

Because why? Because it doesn’t appeal to pedophiles. That’s it. That’s all it comes down to in the end. They are a tiny minority says “a parent”, and children are too precious and vulnerable to risk them being abused by those few weak souls who might be (not have been, not definitely will be, but might be) encouraged to offend. Look, the only reason to outlaw actual child porn is because it’s consumption encourages the production of more, and we are talking about actual abuse in that case. Children are offended against for the explicit purpose of the production of child porn. In other words, it can only exist because sexual abuse has been committed, and the producer(s) did so with that express purpose in mind. But to extend that argument to drawings, paintings and the like where no real children were actually harmed in its production, on the grounds that it might cause a few people to act out on their sexual urges, is a clear example of thought-crime. You can argue that pedophilia is more than thoughts or feelings all you want to. Hell, I’ll even agree with you on that. But the fact is, when you get right down to it, you are outlawing a thought, an idea, a concept. Make no mistake: if we can outlaw erotic drawings of kids on the grounds that it might cause some people to commit sexual abuse, then it’s not a stretch to suggest that adult porn could likewise be outlawed because it might push some people into rape (sex drive, right?), but we don’t outlaw it on those grounds. Not in America anyway.

Ah, but that’s not why adult porn exists, “a parent” will say. And around and around the circle we go. Most artists, even those who deliberately draw pedophilic erotica, aren’t sitting there thinking, “Ha! I’ll make drawings in order to push people into molesting kids! Mwa ha ha ha!” To make that argument is to assume that anyone with the least bit of interest in such content is inherently immoral, prone to abusing kids and seeking to make others like them. “A parent” says if such content is allowed to exist, kids will be abused because of it. He states it as fact, yet offers no evidence to back it up. Well, I know of a country where a great deal of such content exists, is legal for purchase, indeed is found in comics and magazine shops all around the country. I don’t think I even need to name it. And yet there isn’t scads of child rape and abuse happening there. In fact, that country has low crime rates all the way around. Moreover, many studies show that where porn exists legally, sex offenses tend to plummet. Why would it be any different for child erotica? After all, sex with kids is forbidden across the board, unlike sex with consenting adults. Clearly, having such outlets is more beneficial than harmful. But, by all means “a parent”, offer me evidence which demonstrates that I’m wrong and I’ll reconsider.

Finally (whew!), I will offer this. Here is a comic which actually condones child abuse, brought to you by way of the Kids Tract Club. You reckon it’s been influential?

Artist Unknown (Kids’ Tract Club) – Lil’ Bess (1)

Artist Unknown (Kids’ Tract Club) – Lil’ Bess (2)

Random Images: Colleen Doran

Here’s a lovely Art Nouveau-style illustration by comics artist and author Colleen Doran. I’m a huge fan of her space opera comics series A Distant Soil, which often features several beautifully rendered child characters.

My next post will be a much larger one, but with Ron out of the country we’ve been on something of a hiatus. Things should be returning to normal near the end of the month.

Colleen Doran – Inexorable

Colleen Doran (Official Site)

Wikipedia: Colleen Doran

Pierre Brun illustration from Revue des Arts Décoratifs

There is virtually no information available about French illustrator Pierre Brun (who is not to be confused with earlier artist Jean-Baptiste Pierre Le Brun, though he may have been related to him). This is one of a handful of works I could find attributed to him, and the only one that really fit the Pigtails theme. It comes from the French art and style magazine Revue des Arts Décoratifs, though I couldn’t tell you which issue or page. Otherwise I might be able to find a better copy of it elsewhere. But this one isn’t bad.  After a bit of cleaning up, that is. It definitely fits into the Art Nouveau mode and was a practice example of a border illustration such as was often found in books of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

Pierre Brun – From ‘Revue des Arts Décoratifs’

Pierre Brun – From ‘Revue des Arts Décoratifs’ (detail)

 

A Most Charming Lucky Charm: La Nigüenta

No one is exactly sure what gave rise to one of Costa Rica’s most enduring icons. All we know is that for decades, few Costa Rican homes were without an image or statuette of the nude toddler girl known as la Nigüenta (or sometimes La Niña de la Espina). Her name comes from the fact that she is in the act of picking out a nigua, a tiny bothersome flea whose larva has a habit of burrowing into the human foot, especially the soft bit of flesh between the big toe and the second toe of the human foot, causing extreme itching, swelling and infection. In fact, one nickname of the insect is bicho de pie, or “foot bug” in English. It’s a bit confounding how a child with such an unlucky affliction came to be a symbol of good luck, but that is indeed the case.

Artist Unknown – La Nigüenta (original print)

Some say the original image was inspired by an ancient Greco-Roman sculpture called Spinario (Boy with Thorn), which has a fascinating history in its own right. Others suggest it can trace its history to pre-Columbian shamanic women. If the latter is true, it underscores the cleverness of the natives, hiding a powerful pagan emblem beneath the noses of the Catholic Spanish colonizers in such an innocent and seemingly innocuous form. Whatever its history, honoring and displaying this sweet little girl in the home somehow eventually became one of Costa Rica’s most honored and important agüizotes. As an article from the Tico Times says:

Offerings were left for her to ask for good fortune or a particular favor. Today, she is seen as primarily an enchantment to bring economic prosperity. It helps to tuck a few bills under her base, or to prime the pump, if you will. A Nigüenta received as a gift is a far more potent charm than one purchased.

For that reason la Nigüenta is often given as a gift to older and more traditional Costa Ricans, who proudly give her a place of prominence on their televisions, altars, desks, mantles or coffee tables. Different colored ribbons might also be tied around her neck, depending on what one wanted her to direct her good fortune towards: red for love, yellow for money, blue for health, and so on.

The sculptures come in a variety of styles and colors, from plain one- or two-color ones to elaborately painted affairs.

Ale Rambar – Nigüenta rosada (2018)

Ale Rambar – Nigüenta dorada (2019)

Ale Rambar (official site)

Artist Unknown – La Nigüenta (1)

Artist Unknown – La Nigüenta (2)

Artist Unknown – La Nigüentas for sale (1)

Artist Unknown – La Nigüentas for sale (2)

These days she is apt to appear in advertisements, cartoons or modern reinterpretations.

Artist Unknown – ARS SDS ad

Rafael de los Santos (Poteleche) – La Niña de la Espina (2016)

Poteleche (official site)

Note: The Spanish text of this cartoon says something to the effect of “I’ve been trying to get this thing out for years and no one will stoop to help me.” 🙂

Artist Unknown – La Nigüenta (Holalola poster)

Ale Rambar – La Nigüenta

Gioco Roesch – La Nigüenta

Blogspot: Gioco Roesch de Todo

One can even find examples dressed in the shirts of their favorite soccer teams!

Artist Unknown – La Nigüentas (3)

Richard Müller’s Liegender Mädchenakt auf Diwan

I’ve been wanting to post something by Richard Müller for ages but up until recently I couldn’t find anything that really fit the blog’s theme. There were some lovely images of boys, including Boy with Snake and David and Goliath, but nothing featuring girls. That was unfortunate, because I really love Müller’s work. He was a German Symbolist and surrealist painter and illustrator, born in what used to be Tschirnitz, Bohemia (now Cernovice nad Ohra, Czech Republic). At fourteen he began attending the School of the Royal Saxon Porcelain Manufactory in Meissen, Germany. Post-graduation, he entered the Art Academy in Dresden, eventually becoming an instructor at the very same academy. Under the Nazis, Müller, after 35 years as an influential professor and a couple years as president of the Academy, eventually lost his position due to his “subversive tendencies”—any artist who annoyed the Nazis is okay in my book.

Anyway, I thought I’d never get to post anything by Müller here. But then I happened upon this glorious work, Liegender Mädchenakt auf Diwan, which exceeded any expectations I could’ve had for anything suitable for Pigtails. Not only does it feature a beautifully painted nude young girl but the size and quality of the image was exceptional. In fact, this is reduced to forty percent of the original size, and I had to downsize it by about 500 kilobytes as well. If you want the full-sized image just Google the title; it should come up.

What I particularly fancy about this image is the girl’s pose, which strikes just the right balance between formal stiffness and relaxation: the legs crossed at the ankles, the way her right hand casually toys with her hair, the little pudgy rolls of flesh around her hips, even the look on her face, which could be boredom or sleepiness, gives this girl a humanity and familiarity without pushing her into tawdriness or sexual suggestiveness. She’s a child who is only just becoming aware of her feminine appeal. The silky, dark green ribbons tied into her loosely-braided hair contrasts nicely with the warmth and texture of her skin too. A truly lovely piece.

Richard Müller – Liegender Mädchenakt auf Diwan (1924)

Cover of Estar enfermo

Here’s yet another one of those accidental discoveries, found while searching for something else. The artwork is the cover for a book of poetry called Estar enfermo (Be Sick) by Luna Miguel.  I could not track down the artist’s identity, but there is quite a bit of information out there about Ms. Miguel, a young Spanish poet whose work tends to focus quite literally on the flesh, both its erotic qualities and its infirmities. She was born in 1990 in Madrid, Spain, and has since published several books of poetry, the first of which came out in 2009, when Miguel was only nineteen, as well as a novel intriguingly called El funeral de Lolita (Lolita’s Funeral). You can read a snippet from the book here.

There is also a fascinating interview with the author at this site.

Artist Unknown – Luna Miguel – Estar enfermo (cover)

Sublimated Sexuality in Modern Surrealist Girl Art, Part 4

Jana Brike – The Last Dancer in the World

This is the fourth post in the Sublimated Sexuality series. You can view the first three posts in this series here, here and here. Let’s get started.

12) Body horror – This is another fairly broad category that covers a lot of these images, and as with several of the categories, there is a good deal of overlap with some of the other categories (for example, the monstrosity, violence and general weirdness categories). At any rate, this category covers physical deformities and mutations, sickness and disease, bruises and wounds, and what I would deem “frankensteined” people and animals—that is, beings who are something other than a full human or a full animal. Sometimes they are animal-human hybrids; other times they are biomechanical monstrosities.

Ana Bagayan – The Experiment

Ana Bagayan (Official Site)

Jackie Skrzynski – Scratch (2003)

Jackie Skrzynski (Official Site)

Jana Brike – Self Portrait with Erected Tail

Squarespace: Jana Brike

Kokomoo – (Title Unknown) (1)

Cornelia Renz – A Girl Without Hands (2008)

Cornelia Renz (Official Site)

Here there is some overlap with the twins category. Yang Jing’s work often incorporates dolls, which we’ll get to in yet another category.

Yang Jing – We Did Nothing

Ravenel International Art Group: Yang Jing

The following image is perhaps the quintessential example of the thesis of this blog series. The implication in Nicoletta Ceccoli’s Dulcis Agata (Latin for Sweet Agatha) depends partly on how you read this sort of art overall. It also references the next category to be addressed in this post, the presence of food, particularly sweet treats, in these images. Ceccoli often uses cakes and candies in her images to symbolizes childhood, especially girlhood, but there is frequently a sinister undertone to these images, and that is the case here. The title references St. Agatha of Sicily, a girl from a wealthy family who, at age fifteen, refused the sexual advances of a lowborn Roman prefect and was subsequently arrested, tortured and eventually murdered. Among the punishments she supposedly enduring was the cutting off of her breasts.

Here Agatha is presented as a young girl who offers either some sort of dessert drenched in strawberry or cherry sauce, or her own severed breasts. If it is the latter, one can read it in at least two ways. The first is as a feminist allegory in which women are expected to look ever younger for men, and thus a young girl might sever her own breasts to remain child-like in presentation. The second reading is actually not far from the first, and it is that culture desexualizes young girls to keep them pure and holy, by violence if necessary.

Nicoletta Ceccoli – Dulcis Agata

Nicoletta Ceccoli (Official Site)

Cristina Vergano – Escorial, Madrid, September 1705

Cristina Vergano (Official Site)

13) The presence of food, especially sweets – Food is sometimes associated with sex, and no food more so than fruit and candy, both of which are sweet. (Refer to my Cherry Ripe! post for some insight into at least one fruit that commonly symbolizes sex or sexual development.) Sweets are also associated with children, which makes the symbolism in these images especially potent. Add in a healthy dose of satire and you have the makings of a clever commentary on the conflicted view of the young girl in modern society.

Hiroyuki Mano – The cake is a lie

DeviantArt: DensenManiya

Ceccoli’s girls generally exist in some sort of dark Candyland.

Nicoletta Ceccoli – Barbara

Nicoletta Ceccoli – Consumed by You

Scott G. Brooks – Food Chain (2009)

Scott G Brooks Studios (Official Site)

Rene Lynch – Icons – Honey Dipper (Bee Queen) (2006)

Rene Lynch (Official Site)

Mmm, tasty black soup.

Rieko Sakurai – (Title Unknown)

Artnet: Rieko Sakurai

james-jean-recess_-horse

James Jean – Recess – Horse

James Jean (Official Site)

Kokomoo – (Title Unknown) (2)

Kokomoo – (Title Unknown) (3)

14) Masks, especially animal masks – Masks are another recurring emblem in this sort of art. Much can be said about masks in art just in general, but with respect to kids, one immediately thinks of Halloween, which is associated with devils and darkness too, and that of course intersects with one of the persistent themes in these images: horror of one sort or another. If we think in terms of sublimating childhood sexuality, these images are not too dissimilar from the human-animal hybrid pieces, only the artists are perhaps more aware of the sublimation and are acknowledging it. Thus, the masks are in essence a reflection of both the artist’s neuroses with regard to children and a sly acknowledgment that there really are human children behind the false faces being offered to the viewer.

Caleb Weintraub – Ashes Ashes Splashes Splashes

Caleb Weintraub (Official Site)

Jana Brike – The Last Dancer in the World

Here Red Riding Hood becomes the wolf. Yet another clever commentary on the nature of girlhood and how it is perceived.

Nicoletta Ceccoli – My Favorite Costume

Nicoletta Ceccoli – A Girl Hides Secrets