Camille Paglia - Sexual Personae

Although completed in 1981, the manuscript of Sexual Personae was rejected several times by many editors. Finally accepted by Yale University Press in 1985, it became a major hit. Camille Paglia is certainly polemical, and none of her opinions swoops silently. Sexual Personae found a very interesting approach to Art History. It analyzes Art Movements and Art Periods through the never ending conflict of male and female world views. It may sound simple, but yet it can be very complex and rich. According to Paglia, men has always been more prolific in Art as an envious reaction to the female capacity to generate life. There is also a major dichotomy between chtonian and divine, mind and matter, creation and sterility, Apollo and Dionisius, sex and even better sex. The subtitle (Art and Decadence from Emily Dickinson to Nefertiti)tells about the time span of the book. From the creation of the western eye in Egypt (the first manifestation of aesthetic issues in the West)to the utmost sexual perversion of Emily Dickinson´s reclusion in Amherst. Everything "artsy" is sexual, and artistic pleasure is eminently a perversion. The Egyptians were the first to move from creating pots and pans to the creation of objects without practical uses, only for artistic contemplation and enjoyment. Every original artist is a sexual pervert in the sense that it takes sexual originality to create artistic originality. Mixing up Art Criticism, Art History, Psychoanalisis, Pornography, and Hollywood Culture is not only pervert, but also highly original and refined.