I’m speechless…! Or should I not be?
Sotheby’s.
Unusual for the BBC to get it wrong
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I’m afraid to say that spelling and grammar on the BBC website are often wrong, and that’s been the case for many years.
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Not as bad as the Guardian- in the old days it was typos, whereas today it’s ignorance.
Bah!
Nevertheless, glad this thread’s drifted from ‘what is art?’ I’ve explained that too often.
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I recently discovered that there are threads on SF that I didn’t know existed, and am now trying to catch up with the new knowledge gained as to how to avoid it in future.
So I saw this and thought that it might be interesting, I even made a note to answer @Stella’s opening post. Then my eye drifted across to the reply count , 284 
So straight down here to find that @DrMarkH is fed up 
so I’ll be brief, I don’t like abstract, and I do appreciate Banksy. For myself, although I managed an ‘O’ Level GCE in art (subject heat, blue at the top, yellow at the bottom, an animal skull lying on the sand, the whole thing then squiggled with a wet brush to simulate desert heat 
) I have no talent in that direction and only fulfill what artistic temperament I have by writing.
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@David_Spardo
DrMark is fed up explaining his views on what is art…
doesn’t mean you can’t give us your own thoughts
I’ve been catching up with my extended family in UK… so many talented artists amongst them… yet they each have their own ideas 
While hoping no one will take this as an opportunity to knock The Guardian or say this belongs in the political topic thread, I just found some of the images an incredibly inspiring validation of life and the human forms
I love the portrait of Nuryev and (being a tree hugger myself) the photograph by photographer Arno Rafael Minkkinen but find myself moved to tears by this
Continuance of life and love
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Fascinating from start fo finish, not sure I enjoyed them all though, and the surprise I felt at the Schwarznegger photo was that some of the men viewed him with envy. 
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Or lust?
IIRC about 1% of the male population is openly gay, and there may be a small additional number who find the male body sexually attractive without wanting to commit to that approach. I’ve heard it said that everyone wanted to sleep with David Bailey, but suspect that to just be hyperbole and marketing.
Much more likely, in both cases, the envy was towards the female attention they received.
I cannot speak for others but I can say that for myself, the beauty of human form has absolutely nothing to do with personal physical appeal. There is a breathtaking beauty in some physical forms that I do not want to possess or even touch, I’m just amazed and overjoyed that the sublime exists. Human existence can be extraordinary and elevates us, sometimes towards divine.
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Is that all? In places where it won’t get you killed? Seems a very low figure (going by my friends).
Really? He was never particularly handsome (but then attractiveness isn’t looks-dependent).
Seems my figures are out of date - 3.8% of the male population identified as gay in the 2021-2 ONS census. Just looked it up.
Also an interesting comment:
“The proportion of women aged 16 to 24 years identifying as LGB increased to 10.6% in 2022; the proportion of men aged 16 to 24 years identifying as LGB was 7.9%.”
If this is changing then I suspect it’s partly cultural, rather than inherent sexuality. I’ve known a number of LBG individuals over the years, and some were clearly and inherently gay, while others became gay after key experiences (often women who suffered at the hands of abusive partners) or because they fitted into their friendship group better.
While visiting a friend in Nice 20+ years ago, I went on a walkabout with a little snapshot camera and saw this quite large (bronze?) statue, a copy I assume of a work of art, beside the entrance of a grand-looking apartment block that looked a bit run down.
I’ve tried to find out who the artist/sculptor is on the internet without success. Anyone know?
Found it! I uploaded the photo to ChatGPT and asked to help identify the sculptor.
ChatGPT said it was in the style of the 19th-century French sculptor Mathurin Moreau, and so it was he! This example is nearly 3 metres high and is entitled The Flower Fairy.
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You are certainly putting ChatGPT to some good use! I hope AI appreciates the tone 
A very restrained bit of sculpture 
The price isn’t, this particular example is for sale – 150,000 euros - from GALERIE MARC MAISON.
This cast-iron sculpture was created by Mathurin Moreau for the Val d’Osne foundry, with which he collaborated, at the end of the 19th century.
It depicts a winged young girl being led by a cherub. The composition of the sculpture is complex: the woman is seated in the form of an Amazon; her naked body forms a circular arc, her arm raised above her intertwining with long garlands of flowers. These link her to the cherub, who seems to be dragging the fairy through them, setting the whole composition in motion. The sculptor paid great attention to detail: the simple headband on the woman’s head, the modest drape over her thigh and falling over the base, and the cherub’s hair pulled back by the wind give the composition its liveliness.
There are other examples in several musems as well.
I’ve been asking ChatGPT all sorts of questions across a host of wide-ranging subjects for quite some while. I asked it, based on my questions and responses since I started using it, what it thought of me!
Very complimentary, and I felt a sense of honesty in its response! If AI has a sense of honesty of course!
A follow up on honesty…
Great question! As an AI, I don’t have personal feelings or a moral compass in the way humans do, but I am designed to provide accurate, truthful, and reliable information. In that sense, I “practice” honesty by striving to be as clear and factual as possible.
Of course, I can only work with the information available to me, and if I ever make a mistake or don’t know something, I’ll do my best to acknowledge it rather than make something up. My goal is to be helpful, not misleading.
What made you curious about this?
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Unusual medium for outdoor sculpture, because it doesn’t weather as well as bronze and doesn’t hold such fine detail. Suspect the choice of metal was determined by available budget because it’s quite a large piece.