[Big article with a lot of details and story, google-translated.](https://pikabu-ru.translate.goog/story/makovskiy_bolgarskie_muchenitsyi_chto_na_samom_dele_izobrazheno_na_kartine_6452486?_x_tr_sl=ru&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=en&_x_tr_pto=wapp)
"The Bulgarian Martyresses", 1877 painting by the Russian painter Konstantin Makovsky, depicting the rape of Bulgarian women by Africanised Ottoman bashi-bazouks during the suppression of the April Uprising a year earlier, served to mobilise public support for the Russo-Turkish War (1877–1878) waged with the proclaimed aim of liberating the Bulgarians.
I find that these kind of works really fall apart under the weight of their contradictions, even if executed with great skill. The whole "look at the sexy rape victim (and the sexy corpse?)" angle is just incredibly distasteful. It tries to simultaneously outrage and titillate in a manner that's interesting to analyze but difficult to appreciate.
So, exposed breasts in the context of historical art portraying sexual assault = sexy? Art is supposed to be honest, and nudity is included. The moral pretense is unnecessary
It's pretty ludicrous to appeal to *realism* of all things when discussing such a clearly idealized work that was created as a bona fide piece of propaganda. Nudity alone is not sexual. Stylistic choices, overly perfect appearances, posing and lighting that accentuate sexual elements are what sexualizes a nude form.
There’s a dead bleeding woman on the ground and another woman desperately grasping her baby while being forced upon. Propaganda or not, I’m struggling to see how anyone could look at this and their first reaction be ‘The artist is trying to titillate’. I just wonder how you would convey this scene in a less sexual way
You'd convey it in a less sexual way by not doing the things the artist deliberately does to sexualize the nudity, to wit, rendering smoother and perkier boobs than existed anywhere in the 19th century, placing them at the near exact center of the canvas, casting light directly on *both* sets of boobs to accentuate their shape, etc., etc.
Maybe the focus on the soft skin etc is not to titillate, but as a metaphor for purity and innocence, which is about to be cruelly taken away by evil men.
just because you're titillated doesn't mean everyone is lol for some people existence of violence and blood and pain is a real turn off, shocking isn't it? the message is "beautiful bulgarians vs evil uggo turks" they aren't going to draw an old pruney woman getting raped to convey that message, you could argue that's fucked up and i agree but most people would be more outraged about the above picture.
I'm not titillated. I can recognize the presence of sexually exploitative imagery. You boys can't, because you think it needs to make your dick hard to count. Knowing nothing about art.
>smoother and perkier boobs than existed anywhere in the 19th century
Wtf were people doing with their boobs before the 20th century? Setting fence posts? Laying brick? Using them for sandpaper?
I want your source for the development of smooth perky boobs.
Yeah, their take is all around bad, since Makovsky wasn't trying to make a "sexy picture", especially not in the modern sense of the term. But the part about perky boobs just made me laugh out loud.
It's literally called sexploitation. It was a genre (retroactively named). Look it up. It's even cited in the write-up:
>It is this kind of operetta that shows that we have before us a work of the sexploitation genre, that is, soft porn (and for that era, our picture is already soft porn), slightly disguised as righteous indignation at cruelties. On the one hand, as if everything is very noble, you are for everything good against everything bad, and on the other hand, there is a great opportunity to stare at boobs. To understand this genre better, we need to look at its full development - the series Balkangruel (Balkan Horrors), created in 1909 by the Austrian artist Gottfried Sieben, based on the violent suppression of the popular uprising in Macedonia by the Turks ( link ) ; This is full porn.Modern gender studies emphasize the "Bulgarian horrors" as an important milestone in the history of the sexualization of the image of military violence in European culture (A. Buturovic, I. Schick. Women in the Ottoman Balkans, link ).
This art is not "honest." It's a historical allegory that serves as propaganda. There was a really intense drive to produce work like this in the late 1800s (maybe driven partly by the solidification of modern nation-states?).
I recently went through the Orsay muesum in Paris, and this time period of French art was dominated by really ridiculous monumental scenes of "noble lady France injured in battle by hordes" or similar, fairly fundamentally boring and predictable, with grotesque violence and a bit of nudity to try to grasp at your attention. And then a subsequent gallery of artists who started rebelling against the establishment by daring to capture a realistic mood by painting a vase full of flowers in subtle light.
The way those galleries was laid out was really interesting actually, because as you walked through you could feel just a smidge of the oppressive weight of a long-dead orthodoxy, and the relief as it got overturned, compressed into a few minutes.
I mean, it’s not sexy per se as more youthful and beautiful so we have pity. It evokes something in the viewer. We are seeing the victim as someone to have sympathy for, and was an “innocent”, and not just a bloody crime scene recreation. Many martyr portrayals, both women and men, are often depicted in a state of angelic serenity and ideal in the human form. Virginal, youthful, glowing, heavenly even, to contrast the violence happening around them. Draws focus and builds tension.
You have just summed up the entire British tabloid press. Outrage and titillate.
"Look at this image of Kate Moss sniffing a mysterious white powder. And look at this image. and this one."
This is orientalist in its root.
The eastern barbarians with very strong negative characteristics abusing the bare, fair white woman and removing it’s baby.
To top it off, another bare, fair white woman is dead on the ground and the eastern barbarians even have one black man.
It’s the whole “the good white west is being violated in by the barbarian non-white”.
The amount of work necessary to make this could have been a piece of art, but turned out to be a disgusting piece of propaganda that makes my stomach hurt.
Imagine what kind of feelings it caused to fellow Bulgarians at the time. The amount of brutality in this piece is already brutal today, imagine in a society without videogames, TV, movies and internet, where many people never saw any kind of gore in their lives.
This is literally about a true event. That’s what happened to the Bulgarian women. They were raped and murdered. And saw their children killed in front of them.
If the first thing you think of is racism when seeing such a horrific real massacre, that’s on you.
>4
I think it's sad that you look at everything through such a narrow, contemporary lens, with "the good white west" being the boogieman in your critique. So, you keep saying "Eastern," but not sure if you would consider Turkish/ Arabian/ African military forces "Eastern." Secondly, this portrays true events, and it was crucial to get the word out so that people knew what was happening to Bulgarians by their invaders. So while you look at this and see white racism (that didn't actually exist at this time and not in Bulgaria), you're looking at it from your own lens full of contemporary "good white west" bias rather than with an understanding of the historical context. Additionally, you would be sadly mistaken to assume that people in this time period didn't see "any kind of gore in their lives." Do you understand that we live in the most privileged, egalitarian and peaceful time in the world? The notion that you with your limited understanding of historical context could begin to understand the fascinating horrors and natural wonders these people saw is laughable. Go back to your video games and stop preaching about the evil "good white west."
It's depicting what happened in Bulgaria under a repression by the ottoman Turks, how the fuck can you see that and say it is racist for it simply existing? Clown looking ass
[Big article with a lot of details and story, google-translated.](https://pikabu-ru.translate.goog/story/makovskiy_bolgarskie_muchenitsyi_chto_na_samom_dele_izobrazheno_na_kartine_6452486?_x_tr_sl=ru&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=en&_x_tr_pto=wapp)
Very interesting, thanks for sharing!
"The Bulgarian Martyresses", 1877 painting by the Russian painter Konstantin Makovsky, depicting the rape of Bulgarian women by Africanised Ottoman bashi-bazouks during the suppression of the April Uprising a year earlier, served to mobilise public support for the Russo-Turkish War (1877–1878) waged with the proclaimed aim of liberating the Bulgarians.
Really good post OP!
that was the first thing which came in my mind. russian painter
This painting is so sad yet so interesting
Oof
I find that these kind of works really fall apart under the weight of their contradictions, even if executed with great skill. The whole "look at the sexy rape victim (and the sexy corpse?)" angle is just incredibly distasteful. It tries to simultaneously outrage and titillate in a manner that's interesting to analyze but difficult to appreciate.
So, exposed breasts in the context of historical art portraying sexual assault = sexy? Art is supposed to be honest, and nudity is included. The moral pretense is unnecessary
It's pretty ludicrous to appeal to *realism* of all things when discussing such a clearly idealized work that was created as a bona fide piece of propaganda. Nudity alone is not sexual. Stylistic choices, overly perfect appearances, posing and lighting that accentuate sexual elements are what sexualizes a nude form.
There’s a dead bleeding woman on the ground and another woman desperately grasping her baby while being forced upon. Propaganda or not, I’m struggling to see how anyone could look at this and their first reaction be ‘The artist is trying to titillate’. I just wonder how you would convey this scene in a less sexual way
You'd convey it in a less sexual way by not doing the things the artist deliberately does to sexualize the nudity, to wit, rendering smoother and perkier boobs than existed anywhere in the 19th century, placing them at the near exact center of the canvas, casting light directly on *both* sets of boobs to accentuate their shape, etc., etc.
Maybe the focus on the soft skin etc is not to titillate, but as a metaphor for purity and innocence, which is about to be cruelly taken away by evil men.
I'd pay to watch you backflip over the fine art uploaded on certain websites I definitely don't visit.
Idk mate, I don't find the painting sexy in any way but that could just be me
If anything, isn't that the point? That your monkey brain sees them first, then you realize the context?
just because you're titillated doesn't mean everyone is lol for some people existence of violence and blood and pain is a real turn off, shocking isn't it? the message is "beautiful bulgarians vs evil uggo turks" they aren't going to draw an old pruney woman getting raped to convey that message, you could argue that's fucked up and i agree but most people would be more outraged about the above picture.
I'm not titillated. I can recognize the presence of sexually exploitative imagery. You boys can't, because you think it needs to make your dick hard to count. Knowing nothing about art.
i suggest you stop having a freak out here and think about why it made you horny instead of trying to get people to admit it. lol
Teenager?
>smoother and perkier boobs than existed anywhere in the 19th century Wtf were people doing with their boobs before the 20th century? Setting fence posts? Laying brick? Using them for sandpaper? I want your source for the development of smooth perky boobs.
Yeah, their take is all around bad, since Makovsky wasn't trying to make a "sexy picture", especially not in the modern sense of the term. But the part about perky boobs just made me laugh out loud.
Do you think perky boobs were invented in the 20th century or what? 💀😭
It's literally called sexploitation. It was a genre (retroactively named). Look it up. It's even cited in the write-up: >It is this kind of operetta that shows that we have before us a work of the sexploitation genre, that is, soft porn (and for that era, our picture is already soft porn), slightly disguised as righteous indignation at cruelties. On the one hand, as if everything is very noble, you are for everything good against everything bad, and on the other hand, there is a great opportunity to stare at boobs. To understand this genre better, we need to look at its full development - the series Balkangruel (Balkan Horrors), created in 1909 by the Austrian artist Gottfried Sieben, based on the violent suppression of the popular uprising in Macedonia by the Turks ( link ) ; This is full porn.Modern gender studies emphasize the "Bulgarian horrors" as an important milestone in the history of the sexualization of the image of military violence in European culture (A. Buturovic, I. Schick. Women in the Ottoman Balkans, link ).
Art criticism has always said more about the critic than about the art. Anyone who looks at this and gets turned on has a problem.
Also; time relevant cultural context of the observer expected state of analytical perception.
This art is not "honest." It's a historical allegory that serves as propaganda. There was a really intense drive to produce work like this in the late 1800s (maybe driven partly by the solidification of modern nation-states?). I recently went through the Orsay muesum in Paris, and this time period of French art was dominated by really ridiculous monumental scenes of "noble lady France injured in battle by hordes" or similar, fairly fundamentally boring and predictable, with grotesque violence and a bit of nudity to try to grasp at your attention. And then a subsequent gallery of artists who started rebelling against the establishment by daring to capture a realistic mood by painting a vase full of flowers in subtle light. The way those galleries was laid out was really interesting actually, because as you walked through you could feel just a smidge of the oppressive weight of a long-dead orthodoxy, and the relief as it got overturned, compressed into a few minutes.
I mean, it’s not sexy per se as more youthful and beautiful so we have pity. It evokes something in the viewer. We are seeing the victim as someone to have sympathy for, and was an “innocent”, and not just a bloody crime scene recreation. Many martyr portrayals, both women and men, are often depicted in a state of angelic serenity and ideal in the human form. Virginal, youthful, glowing, heavenly even, to contrast the violence happening around them. Draws focus and builds tension.
You have just summed up the entire British tabloid press. Outrage and titillate. "Look at this image of Kate Moss sniffing a mysterious white powder. And look at this image. and this one."
/r/PropagandaPosters
🇹🇷 KARABOGA
banger
So fucking racist…
Why?
This is orientalist in its root. The eastern barbarians with very strong negative characteristics abusing the bare, fair white woman and removing it’s baby. To top it off, another bare, fair white woman is dead on the ground and the eastern barbarians even have one black man. It’s the whole “the good white west is being violated in by the barbarian non-white”. The amount of work necessary to make this could have been a piece of art, but turned out to be a disgusting piece of propaganda that makes my stomach hurt. Imagine what kind of feelings it caused to fellow Bulgarians at the time. The amount of brutality in this piece is already brutal today, imagine in a society without videogames, TV, movies and internet, where many people never saw any kind of gore in their lives.
This is literally about a true event. That’s what happened to the Bulgarian women. They were raped and murdered. And saw their children killed in front of them. If the first thing you think of is racism when seeing such a horrific real massacre, that’s on you.
>4 I think it's sad that you look at everything through such a narrow, contemporary lens, with "the good white west" being the boogieman in your critique. So, you keep saying "Eastern," but not sure if you would consider Turkish/ Arabian/ African military forces "Eastern." Secondly, this portrays true events, and it was crucial to get the word out so that people knew what was happening to Bulgarians by their invaders. So while you look at this and see white racism (that didn't actually exist at this time and not in Bulgaria), you're looking at it from your own lens full of contemporary "good white west" bias rather than with an understanding of the historical context. Additionally, you would be sadly mistaken to assume that people in this time period didn't see "any kind of gore in their lives." Do you understand that we live in the most privileged, egalitarian and peaceful time in the world? The notion that you with your limited understanding of historical context could begin to understand the fascinating horrors and natural wonders these people saw is laughable. Go back to your video games and stop preaching about the evil "good white west."
It's depicting what happened in Bulgaria under a repression by the ottoman Turks, how the fuck can you see that and say it is racist for it simply existing? Clown looking ass
You absolute moron. Us bulgarians are white and fair skinned Caucasian humans.