The mystery of the image of an astronaut cleaned by Rudesind

Russ Allbery · 07 Jul 2010, 01:58 · from 2010-July.txt.gz

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From: rra at stanford.edu (Russ Allbery)
Date: Tue, 06 Jul 2010 18:58:31 -0700
Subject: (urth) The mystery of the image of an astronaut cleaned by
	Rudesind
In-Reply-To: <SNT123-W23045DBF6AD8BB1B71411ECFB20 at phx.gbl> (Lee Berman's
	message of "Tue, 6 Jul 2010 10:43:26 -0400")
References: <SNT123-W23045DBF6AD8BB1B71411ECFB20 at phx.gbl>
Message-ID: <87bpaknjco.fsf at windlord.stanford.edu>

Lee Berman <severiansola at hotmail.com> writes:

> Lewis Carroll was a lifelong bachelor who enjoyed taking nude pictures
> of pre-pubescent girls. If you think Gene Wolfe is alluding to him with
> Inire and his looking glass/mirrors and finds both a bit creepy I would
> not disagree.  Still I must guess Wolfe admires Lewis Carroll as he does
> other referenced authors such as J.L. Borges, Rudyard Kipling and Mary
> Shelley.

It's probably also worth mentioning that several modern historians believe
this was nowhere near as shocking as it sounds to modern sensibilities.
At the time, photography was very new and photography advocates and
hobbyists were trying to treat it as an art form akin to painting, with
very similar goals.  The classical nude, of a variety of ages, was common
subject material for painting, and hence it's likely that photography
enthusiasts considered it suitable subject material for photography as
well, for a variety of artistic reasons that don't necessarily have
anything directly to do with sex or eroticism.  There's also some evidence
that child nudes were seen as a symbol of innocence and were simply not
viewed with the approbation that they are today, to the extent that they
may have appeared on Christmas cards and the like.

For much more on this topic, see the work of Hugues Lebailly, who among
others has been calling into question the traditional interpretation of
Carroll's photographic subjects (which are far more varied than just young
girls as is often believed).

On a similar front, there's also some reason to believe that Carroll's
supposed preference for young girls over other companions is way overblown
and is based largely on a few written comments taken out of context.  See,
for example, <http://carrollmyth.com/contrariwise/cldandfemales.html>.

-- 
Russ Allbery (rra at stanford.edu)             <http://www.eyrie.org/~eagle/>

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