Discouraging Artistic Ability

[ABC 123]

Maybe I have been outside the loop too long, but what is it of any else's business what I do with a talent of mine (assuming I wasn't churning out pornography or something)?

Churches have rules on such things?

[ken_sylvania]

Maybe I have been outside the loop too long, but what is it of any else's business what I do with a talent of mine (assuming I wasn't churning out pornography or something)?

Churches have rules on such things?

Why would it be anybody else's business if you were making porn?

[Neto]

A conservative Mennonite friend of my wife's took art classes (several decades ago), and part of the training required drawing live models. Nudes, of course. I would not want to do that, but I suppose it would limit the development of a person's artistic abilities, because they say that you cannot draw realistic looking people w/o understanding bone & muscle structure. I don't have that kind of ability, so I'll never need to face that decision.

If a group was really strictly against artistic expression, then I would think that even furniture should be very simple, with no non-functional designs or shapes. But I can understand the viewpoint that distinguishes between people and landscapes, or even animals. (Especially if the portrait was to look like a specific person.)

[Ken]

A conservative Mennonite friend of my wife's took art classes (several decades ago), and part of the training required drawing live models. Nudes, of course. I would not want to do that, but I suppose it would limit the development of a person's artistic abilities, because they say that you cannot draw realistic looking people w/o understanding bone & muscle structure. I don't have that kind of ability, so I'll never need to face that decision.

If a group was really strictly against artistic expression, then I would think that even furniture should be very simple, with no non-functional designs or shapes. But I can understand the viewpoint that distinguishes between people and landscapes, or even animals. (Especially if the portrait was to look like a specific person.)

Would they be similarly inhibited or restrictive if they have members who are in nursing or medical training and have to encounter nude bodies in teaching material, or in clinical training?

[steve-in-kville]

From oils, canvas, acrylics and pastels... to porn.

This place never ceases to amaze me.

[Soloist]

A conservative Mennonite friend of my wife's took art classes (several decades ago), and part of the training required drawing live models. Nudes, of course. I would not want to do that, but I suppose it would limit the development of a person's artistic abilities, because they say that you cannot draw realistic looking people w/o understanding bone & muscle structure. I don't have that kind of ability, so I'll never need to face that decision.

If a group was really strictly against artistic expression, then I would think that even furniture should be very simple, with no non-functional designs or shapes. But I can understand the viewpoint that distinguishes between people and landscapes, or even animals. (Especially if the portrait was to look like a specific person.)

Would they be similarly inhibited or restrictive if they have members who are in nursing or medical training and have to encounter nude bodies in teaching material, or in clinical training?

Substantial difference between nursing and drawing.

Nursing, that nude body needs help and protection, drawing, the nude body is there by choice and is exploited by viewers for their lusts.
Ever looked at porn? compare it to pictures of anatomy in a medical text book. Now tell me they are the same...

I would have a serious problem with someone taking an art class and drawing nude people... I would not have a problem with someone in nursing.
Going through nursing school, outside of placing a catheter or doing wound care on someone's bottom, I rarely saw their body anyway as personal privacy was important. As a surgical tech in the navy, I regularly saw women and men without clothes in their personal areas for quite a few different surgeries and we never spoke about their body. The most I saw was during a cosmetic procedure, the doc asked the female nurse how the top looked to her after he finished the sculpting.
Now at this point in my life and walk, I would still have my clinical mindset to do surgical interventions, but its very unlikely the church would be okay with me in Urology and certainly not OBGYN. I can't ethically work in that field anymore anyway.

[Sliceitup]

Substantial difference between nursing and drawing.

Nursing, that nude body needs help and protection, drawing, the nude body is there by choice and is exploited by viewers for their lusts.
Ever looked at porn? compare it to pictures of anatomy in a medical text book. Now tell me they are the same...

I would have a serious problem with someone taking an art class and drawing nude people... I would not have a problem with someone in nursing.

Are you saying that in drawing nudes the body is being exploited for people’s lusts? That it can’t be a pure exercise in artistic pursuit?

[ken_sylvania]

Substantial difference between nursing and drawing.

Nursing, that nude body needs help and protection, drawing, the nude body is there by choice and is exploited by viewers for their lusts.
Ever looked at porn? compare it to pictures of anatomy in a medical text book. Now tell me they are the same...

I would have a serious problem with someone taking an art class and drawing nude people... I would not have a problem with someone in nursing.

Are you saying that in drawing nudes the body is being exploited for people’s lusts? That it can’t be a pure exercise in artistic pursuit?

"Artistic pursuit" in drawing, photography, and film has a long history of being used as an excuse for people to indulge in unholy and fleshly desires. It seems there are plenty of people who get a buzz out of indulging in the forbidden.

[Soloist]

Are you saying that in drawing nudes the body is being exploited for people’s lusts? That it can’t be a pure exercise in artistic pursuit?

"Artistic pursuit" in drawing, photography, and film has a long history of being used as an excuse for people to indulge in unholy and fleshly desires. It seems there are plenty of people who get a buzz out of indulging in the forbidden.

I see no Christian reason to ever allow it.

[Sliceitup]

Substantial difference between nursing and drawing.

Nursing, that nude body needs help and protection, drawing, the nude body is there by choice and is exploited by viewers for their lusts.
Ever looked at porn? compare it to pictures of anatomy in a medical text book. Now tell me they are the same...

I would have a serious problem with someone taking an art class and drawing nude people... I would not have a problem with someone in nursing.

Are you saying that in drawing nudes the body is being exploited for people’s lusts? That it can’t be a pure exercise in artistic pursuit?

"Artistic pursuit" in drawing, photography, and film has a long history of being used as an excuse for people to indulge in unholy and fleshly desires. It seems there are plenty of people who get a buzz out of indulging in the forbidden.

I’m not disputing that artistic pursuits have not been used as an excuse, but I’d love to hear some examples. I’ve never heard this narrative before. Or not applied to something as simple and timeless as trying to understand the human body in order to create an accurate representation of it. Da Vinci was so intrigued with how the body worked that he bought dead bodies in order to dissect them and see the inner workings. Now that’s pretty gruesome. But he was also the first to accurately describe the human spine, and the first to determine that the heart had four chambers, not two. His art and his study of anatomy can’t really be separated. He understood proportions in ways that were very new and significant.

I’m not sure that Da Vinci and his studies hold lessons for the modern anabaptist, but it would be foolish to say that studying anatomy and the naked body has nothing to do with recreating it in art form.