Okay ... I've now been caught in the crossfire of the culture wars. For a year now I've been submitting deviations on and off here at DA, and generally enjoying a quietly pleasant and encouraging cameraderie with a small handful of friends and other deviants. Then ~IT~ happened ... I submitted a deviation (this one here: [link] ) and suddenly some strangers jumped out of nowhere, complaining that it is a piece of pornographic crap. Well, needless to say this really surprised me, and it also hurt my feelings a little, since I would never in a million years want to be associated with pornography. So I went and looked through the forums, and sure enough, there seems to be a running and raging culture wars debate here on DA, concerning four issues:

1.) Is the nude human figure a legitimate subject of art?
2.) What subtle quality differentiates between a picture/painting/drawing of a naked person and an artistic nude?
3.) Should nude art be allowed on DA?
3.) Should nude art be encouraged and recognized, such as through Daily Deviations?

By way of example, take a look at this sticky thread touching on these topics: [link]

My take on all this is that most of the heat and smoke is caused by a loose coalition of self-righteous trolls with too much time on their hands, and evangelical pseudo-Christian holy warriors who feel obliged to fight the culture wars. Both are the sort of people that I consider to be time-wasters, so I merely ignored them. But there remained some legitimate questions about nude art and its meaning in the age of the cheap digi-cam. This wallpaper is an attempt to articulate the state of the debate, as I see it, in visual terms.

Note: The visual irony in this deviation is intentional, and I had to search long and hard for the ~perfect~ stock photo to articulate that sense of irony. I do not have the answers to the questions I ask.

A closing thought, which is particularly aimed at the so-called Christian holy warriors: I just read in today's paper that Pope Benedict has fast-tracked the sanctification case of Pope John Paul II. Remember that JPII wrote this about artistic nudity: "Because God created it the human body can remain nude and uncovered and preserve its splendour and its beauty." Santo Subito.

For more cool wallpapers, be sure to look in my gallery, here:
~Laurion

Stock Photo Credits:

BrokenArts, at [link]

Attention Wallpaper Lovers:

Wallpapers get a lot of downloads, but they seldom get very many comments. If you like a wallpaper (by me or anyone else), please please please give it a fave, and leave a comment saying why you like it! And if you don't like it, tell us why! This is very important to those of us who make the wallpapers you download, and not just for reasons of ego-gratification. Some people think of wallpapers as so-much eye-candy ... but they are so much more also. Since you download it onto your desktop, a wallpaper can be a very personal choice, as it is something that stares back at you from your monitor everytime you start your computer. The production of decent wallpapers, like any other kind of art, requires feedback, comments and criticism! So much for my rant ... enjoy the wallpapers, and say something, damnit!!!

Attention Digital Artists:

Have you thought about posting some of your work as wallpapers? The DA community is very much about exploring avenues for creating digital art that is more than "just" eye-candy. But, sometimes, it's fun to remember that art can be as much about function as form, and one of the most traditional ~practical~ uses of digital art is as wallpapers. You might enjoy making and sharing wallpapers that, hopefully, look good and yet make the viewer stop and think for a second, or at the very least do a double-take. You might appreciate the challenge of creating a personal system of syntagmatics that successfully presents complex issues in a "pop-art" medium that tends to be highly iconic in nature. Finally, you might feel a sense of mission in working in a DA genre that really hasn't fully evolved beyond the representation of eye-candy as art. Anyways, think about it ...