The Art of Bondage, Explained With Examples

noreply@blogger.com (Pat Powers) — Sun, 11 Aug 2013 16:07:00 +0000

"Marco!" Image source: Hogtied.com (It's tagged "bondagetrials.com" but this was a website that branched off from Hogtied but was never launched because they feared the models would injure themselves or each other in the course of the trials ... hey, this is Spar .. America!)

Over on the Eros Blog they've got a nice post about some porn images being art images. I tend to agree. I've found quite a few pics that made me go "Wow!" first and foremost the pic above. It's an image of a bound woman swimming as part of the never-launched website "Bondage Trials" a spinoff of Hogtied.com. I think the trial in this case was swimming with bound hands while carrying a banana from one part of the pool to the other, because there are other images of the model swimming with a banana clutched in her bound hands and of her trying to get the banana from the edge of the pool using only her tongue. The thing that makes it look like fine art to me is the way the reflections work on th woman's figure and on the surfaces of the pool, and the surface of the water. It turns a prosaic image into something that looks like an artist playing with the themes of light, shadow, shape and texture and how they interact on an abstract level to create an image with an objective meaning ... nude in a swimming pool. Cool stuff, indeed! Then there's this image from Public Disgrace:

"My breast is pleased to meet you as well!" Image source:Public Disgrace.
How is this a fine art image? Just a woman on a bus with her hands tied behind her back getting felt up by a fellow passenger. Well, to see what makes it art, you need to look at the Dutch Old Master painting below:
"Gypsy Girl" by Frans Hals. Image source: public domain.
Here's the link: look at the women's faces, they are almost the same: the same sly expression in the eyes, the same half smile on the mouth, the same rounded cheeks, the same dimpled chins, the same nose ... let's face it, they could be Celebrity Clones! So this image is a reflection of an Old Masterpiece, and maybe gives us a bit of an insight into the painting ... was Hals' hand inside that open blouse when the painting was created, but left out of the final product? We'll never know, but I think this art leads to some speculation. Finally, there's this bit, not a bondage image but still very nice:
"This is what I call my lickety-split! If only I had something else to lick." Image source: CL-EROTIC.com. (And if you like images of stretchy naked women wrapping themselves into all sorts of improbable but erotic poses, you owe it to yourself to visit CL-Erotic, it does not photograph models if they are not way over to extreme on the bendy scale.) I see this image as a sort of modern rural Americana piece, much like some of the paintings of Grant Woods and Edward Hopper that portrayed rural landscapes in all their vastness. Kind of like this photo:
"Wheat!" Image source: Dirt Road In A Wheat Field, © Alexei Poselenov | Dreamstime.com.
I see the CL-Erotic photo as an image of the sort of thing that probably has occurred more than a few times in rural America, some limber cheerleader wowing her boyfriend with her bendiness and her sexiness on the hood of a car in some distant field, in front of God and everybody as the saying goes, hidden in plain sight by the vastness of the landscape they're in. The raunch factor of her exposed pussy and anus is offset by her carefree grin as she licks her knee, enjoying the sun, the sky and the near-certain prospect of having that wide-open body of her thoroughly fucked on the hood of that car. It's a Real American Image, all right!
Study in Sepia. Image source: Hogtied.com
Let's finish with a strong bondage image that also has the look of fine art. Like the image that started this post, this is another study in texture, form, color and shape, the smooth masses of the woman's body contrasting with the rough textures of the boards she rests on and the even rougher texture of the brick wall at the top of the image. The linearity of the boards works against the curves of her body, and it's unified by the blacks, browns, and grays that are the dominant colors of the image. The vulnerability of her pussy, soft and delicate and organic, is contrasted with the hard inorganic shapes around her. You may think that none of these images is art, or can be art, because they have elements that most would say are prurient. I personally think that's a function of culture ... the art will remain long after the culture is gone.

Great Bondage Comic Talent Discovered!

noreply@blogger.com (Pat Powers) — Wed, 20 Mar 2013 05:55:00 +0000

Yeah, a big image, might take a little scrolling, but damn, totally worth it. You can see more like it at shiniez' deviantart page. Do go there!

So, a couple days ago I get a message from an acquaintance on a message board I frequent that said, "You ought to check this guy's art out, I think you'd really enjoy it." So I checked it out, mostly to be nice, because most of the time I get such recommendations it's for an artist who's basically mediocre but is pushing the recommender's buttons in all sort of ways. Which may not be the same buttons I have.

But after an hour so staring bug-eyed at topnotch artwork, wondering why the hell I'd never heard of Shiniez before, I posted to the guy and asked if I could publish the piece you see above. He was cool about it and so, here we are.

It's not JUST the quality of the artwork though. Shiniez has a white-hot focus on the lesbian bondage fantasy, not just from the viewpoint of the kinky sex, though he is absolutely spot-on there, but from the viewpoint of the character dynamics of the fantasy. You understand the attraction the highly kinky relationship has for the characters involved, which makes the sexual imagery much more powerful.

What I'm saying is, this guy is a major bondage art talent and you OWE IT TO YOURSELF to get your eyeballs over to his page and give it a look. And if you like it, damn, buy something of his, nothing like rewarding talent directly! This guy is freaking good. He's been at it for over a decade! (/grumbles) How did I miss all that bondage-y goodness for so long?

Welcome to the Art of Bondage!

noreply@blogger.com (Pat Powers) — Sat, 26 Nov 2011 19:11:00 +0000

There is a lot of simply brilliant bondage art out there. This blog will be dedicated to exploring it!