Photography by Joel Bloch

I am back after a long gap. Let me commence my blog with a few lovely photography by Joel Bloch.

I love the game he plays with light and darkness on a woman's body.

Most of the photographs belong to the series called "Obscures" and taken from http://www.photoforum.ru/. 

I love the way her fingers crawl on her stomach. Excellent lighting !

You can see an emotion being beautifully played on the body below.

And this one is my best pick. Such an expression in her eye !

And the last one, a surreal one, titled "Fractals".

Father and daughter

There's a definite difference between beauty and vulgarity. An artist's eyes always can identify the difference, whereas our conservative society can hardly recognize. If you see the nude paintings of oriental goddesses below, you'll immediately feel (if you have an artist-like sensibility), this pics are beautiful and innocent. These have been painted by famous Chinese oil-painter Li Zhuang Ping. And not obviously the nude model is her daughter, Li Qin.

Do you think this is perverted act?

Mahmoud Said

I am putting some beautiful paintings by Mahmoud Said, who modernized the art in Egypt with his depth of feeling and colour.

Apsara

Apsara's are divine dancers. They are mentioned in Hindu and Buddhist mythology. In Hindu puranas they are beautiful charmer who dance in the court of Indra, the king of the heaven. Apsaras are so full of eternal beauty that they are often sent to seduce people on earth who are trying to gain power by doing rigorous penance.


The beauty of apsaras have become a regular subject of Hindu art and architecture. Rambha, Menaka, Tilottama and Urvashi are a few famous names in Hindu scripts. Among all apsaras Urvashi is known to be most beautiful. Menaka is famous for her success in seducing Rishi (saint) Vishwamitra. It is said that while Menaka was bathing, Vishwamitra got arrested by her naked beauty. Artist Raja Ravi Varma painted a few Vis



Also in the Khmer Temple of Angkor Wat, Combodia, inscriptions of beautiful apsaras have been found. These apsaras are well-ornamented with a skirt and bare breasts. The apsara dnace is a part of Combodian traditional dances.

Many beautiful apsara paintings have been done by Combodian artist Reahu. However, the govt. banned his artwork in the country with the charge of obscenity to deities.

Mariette Lydis

Mariette, Comtesse Govone, lived an extraordinary life of adventure and sexual intrigue. She was born Marietta Ronsperger in Vienna in 1887 (or, depending on which source you believe, 1890, 1892, or 1894). She married Jean Lydis in 1922, but left him for the Italian writer Massimo Bontempelli, who took her to Paris. In 1928 Mariette Lydis married the art publisher Comte Giuseppi Govone. Lydis had a great artistic success in 30s Paris, starting with a solo show at the Galerie Bernheim Jeune, after which she became a member and a juror at the Salon de Automne. Mariette Lydis fled the Nazis invasion of France with her lover Erica Marx, taking refuge in the sleepy Cotswold town of Winchcombe, before making a perilous voyage to Buenos Aires. Lydis was also close to the aviator Amelia Earhart. Mariette Lydis lived in Argentina for the rest of her life. Her style was influenced by that of the Japanese artist Tsuguharu Foujita, whom she knew in Montmartre. There is always an edge of ambiguous sexuality and danger in the art of Mariette Lydis, well-represented in our prints, hand-coloured drypoints for Verlaine's Parallelement and etchings and aquatints illustrating the poetry of Baudelaire and Rimbaud. Her work is in many major museums and collections worldwide.


Mariette Lydis working with a model

Minoan Women's Costume