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After reading the comments to my last entry, a late-night rant on the Anthropologie holiday catalogue, I decided I needed to follow up with a more sober-minded reflection on my response to it. First, I should note that I never doubted the aesthetic interest of the image itself. The photographs throughout that catalogue are both sumptuous and unsettling. As I tell my students all the time, the way to learn something about both yourself and what you are studying is to focus precisely on those things that provoke, disturb, and perplex you.
To the extent that the image I posted manages to elicit that sort of reaction, it represents, not only an aesthetic success, but a commercial one as well. While the claim that there is no such thing as bad publicity in the advertising world may be exaggerated, I'm sure that Anthropologie would rather have people discussing their catalogues than not. And then there's the possibility that my getting riled up has as much to do with the realization that part of me is captivated by this sort of imagery as it did with my high-minded assault on patriarchal property relations.
I looked through the whole catalogue again this morning, trying to make sense of the sense of outrage that hit me when I first set it aside to scan. Anthropologie's catalogue is an extreme example of the sort that, rather than simply showing the items for sale as neutrally as possible -- think the classic Sears Roebuck tome -- seeks to immerse them within a scene that cannot be reduced to what can be purchased, where there is always a remainder of what I like to tell Skylar is "for display purposes only." Actually, in the case of the Anthropologie catalogue only some items are given this treatment. The scene-setting pages alternate with close-ups of shirts, sweaters, accessories and household goods. But because these human-free shots are color and background-matched to the ones presenting staged scenes of human interaction, they are still bound to a particular context.
What disturbs me most about the image in my last entry and the ones I share above and below is the way that the remainder of that which is "for display purposes only" works together with the posing of the grown-ups and children in the photos to blur the line between property and person. Believe it or not, the only thing technically for sale in the "Visions of Sugarplums" image is the blonde woman's jacket. Everything else is there purely for show.
( Read on to see more images from the Anthropologie holiday catalogue and two famous female nudes! )
To the extent that the image I posted manages to elicit that sort of reaction, it represents, not only an aesthetic success, but a commercial one as well. While the claim that there is no such thing as bad publicity in the advertising world may be exaggerated, I'm sure that Anthropologie would rather have people discussing their catalogues than not. And then there's the possibility that my getting riled up has as much to do with the realization that part of me is captivated by this sort of imagery as it did with my high-minded assault on patriarchal property relations.I looked through the whole catalogue again this morning, trying to make sense of the sense of outrage that hit me when I first set it aside to scan. Anthropologie's catalogue is an extreme example of the sort that, rather than simply showing the items for sale as neutrally as possible -- think the classic Sears Roebuck tome -- seeks to immerse them within a scene that cannot be reduced to what can be purchased, where there is always a remainder of what I like to tell Skylar is "for display purposes only." Actually, in the case of the Anthropologie catalogue only some items are given this treatment. The scene-setting pages alternate with close-ups of shirts, sweaters, accessories and household goods. But because these human-free shots are color and background-matched to the ones presenting staged scenes of human interaction, they are still bound to a particular context.What disturbs me most about the image in my last entry and the ones I share above and below is the way that the remainder of that which is "for display purposes only" works together with the posing of the grown-ups and children in the photos to blur the line between property and person. Believe it or not, the only thing technically for sale in the "Visions of Sugarplums" image is the blonde woman's jacket. Everything else is there purely for show. ( Read on to see more images from the Anthropologie holiday catalogue and two famous female nudes! )
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