Nоrmаn Lіndsаy: Lооkіng Up

I go on at great length sometimes about how mankind has failed to properly appreciate female beauty and sexuality. Unfortunately, as much as we love to look at naked women, we still believe that doing so is immoral. And when we do look at the women who are benevolent enough to share with us the beauty of their bodies, we look down on them, as if they're doing something wrong.

Of course there are people out there who do appreciate female beauty, who perhaps even love it, but even they have to admit, that deep down, they still have an ingrained distrust of it. The proof of this is the fact that they cannot entirely dismiss the modern theories of female beauty that tell us that beauty causes anorexia, and that nudity causes violence against women.

Even those who flaunt their love of female beauty as if they believed it were moral to do so can't bring themselves to give up the terminology used by those who hate female sexuality. For example there are myriad websites on the internet devoted to pornography, yet even the classiest of them consistently use words like naughty, nasty, and dirty.

Then there is the rarest creature on earth: the man who looks upon the female form and the being inside it, and sees a light of almost unbearable purity all around her - the man who sees female beauty and sexuality as I do, as a completely moral phenomenon which is not only innocent of all the evil it's been accused of, but which is actually a force of ultimate good, one which has never been equalled by any religion or moral philosophy.

One such man is Nоrmаn Lіndsаy.

Nоrmаn Lіndsаy was a man who loved women, and an artist who drew almost nothing else. But in this he is not alone. There are many such artists, and there always has been. But what separates Norman from the others is why he was obsessed. Most artists draw women because they've found nothing nicer to look at. Nоrmаn Lіndsаy on the other hand drew only women because only in them did he find something worth looking up to.

Above is one of many beautiful concrete sculptures which Norman fashioned around his home in Nеw Sоυth Wаlеs Aυstrаlіа earlier in the century. You might have noticed this statue of the 3 Graces in the Jоhn Dυіgаn movie Sirens which was filmed at Lindsay's now museum home.

I offer this work as evidence of the fact that Lindsay had an unusual view of women, even among those artists and writers who claim to revere female beauty. In fact, believe it or not, this is the only work of art ever created that shows a beautiful woman being looked up to.

This fact is the most scathing indictment of mankind's views of female beauty, and the best exoneration of the ideas of Nоrmаn Lіndsаy.

Visit Thе Nоrmаn Lіndsаy Expеrіеncе by Desertqueen, a wonderful website devoted to Nоrmаn Lіndsаy, his life and his art.