VOYEURISM I

I've chosen to include this picture in my Blog because it illustrates a recurring theme in erotic/pornographic art - the voyeur.   It's difficult to explain why but when an artist adds a 'wacher' to the scene, it becomes ten times more arousing - well, that's what I think!

This picture, which is one of a series of 30+ paintings, is by a French artist called Georges Delfau.  One could be forgiven for thinking it was painted around 1900 but in fact it seems to date from the 1990s when it was published in Paris. The entire series features women in late middle age enjoying a lively and varied sex-life.  The artist makes no attempt to idealize these women; they are not beautiful and their lovers (young or old, male or female) are never good-looking. 

The pictures seem to have been done in oils, or perhaps oil pastels.  Delfau has gone to a lot of trouble to create an interesting and detailed setting (in this case, an Edwardian bedroom) and the sexual details are usually suggested, rather than shown in gory detail.

But what about the voyeur?  The teddy bear suggests that this is child, perhaps awoken by the sounds of lovemaking.  And what is he witnessing?  His mother and father?  His mother with 'another man'?  His father with the woman next door?  Who knows!