I must thank Pete Roberts on two accounts, firstly for his posting on my previous blog ( though I feel its much more than just a posting) & secondly for the introduction of "Aretifism" hitherto unknown to me! I had to look it up & thats not quite as easy. this is one of the descriptions that I found:http://www.reference.com/browse/wiki/Foot_fetishism
& I love his invention of "Aretific Aesthetics". For those two reasons, and more importantly for the way he has so elequently approached such a Taboo subject, I felt that I should bring the posting to the front page of the blog, & so here it is below: Thanks Pete.
Aretifism.
By Pete Roberts.
Johnny Jaan’s photography has been described (following Elmer Batter) as ‘leg art’, podophilia or foot fetishism, but a more artistic term would be Aretifism. Meaning the love of the naked or stockinged foot, it is an obscure word for an obscure and often furtive obsession: women’s feet.
A fetish strictly speaking involves the substitution of a worshipped object for the love of a person. But Aretifism is about the love of the person’s feet and there is a strong link between the love of free feet and the enjoyment of freedom within relationships. In other words, this kind of fetish is amongst the most gentle of the obsessions, and the respect shown by both Batter and Jaan for their models is obvious.
The compositions of the photographs are beautiful: light and shadow dance in Jaan’s work in divine fashion, illuminating the most ordinary subject- from a calloused foot to a gorgeous model. In fact, much of the work is not fetishistic at all, but a study in human anatomy- the foot being the most complex organ after the face and showing almost as much character. But the attention to light is strong in each case and the patterns of shadow form a poetic frame to the complexity of the human foot.
There is no domination in these pictures and most models are isolated, for this is art not pornography, and any excitement gained is aesthetic first then sexual rather than the other way round. Vulnerability is the key- the models are human, their acceptance of the photographer’s interest in the obscure foot shows a trust and a shared relief that this most furtive of affections can be shared. Other more fetishistic artists would concentrate on the taking off of the shoe, the striptease, the foot in the face, but Jaan is more of a still life artist- in Retro 1C the beautiful model is bathed in sunlight and strips of shadow- she has fetishy gear but the focus is soft, suggestive and tender. These are some of the most erotic aretific shots because of the fuller human presence, but there is no doubt that the stockinged feet are the key. One’s arousal and the shadowy sunshine are deeply connected- this is art as mystery, and there is nothing more mysterious than the paraphernalia of women’s feet.
When a woman comes back to your apartment, she signals her surrender to intimacy with you by slipping off her shoes- usually while you are not looking. This is her casting off the outside world, signalling that sex is on. Women drop the heels of their court shoes, play footsie, obsess about shoe shops and like to have their feet massaged and so on. But when a man declares his love of the mystery of feet, he is often rebuffed as a weirdo. The action has to be furtive and feels perverse. What Batter and Jaan are doing is trying to publicise this furtive obsession so that it can become as legitimate a desire as kissing. They are breaking the most obvious yet unspoken taboo in our culture: that women’s feet out of shoes are gorgeously exciting.
The mystery of boots, stockings, heels and shoes etc is that they involve a mystery, and like all mysteries there have to be taboos, barriers, boundaries and frustrations. For example, to maintain the mystery of Christ the church has to bar the altar with a rood screen. The mystery of money is maintained by the counter of the shop or bank. The mystery of feet is multiplied by the exoticism of the barrier boot, sock or stocking which act like sheaths to the bare foot which is itself about the mystery of soul. Sole/soul is an old pun, but there is a truth in it- the sole of the foot is a beautiful place, a mysterious lunar surface, and the woman’s shoe/stocking/sole boundaries are the boundaries of the goddess: the mystery of the surrender of the woman to her partner, to sex and to the divine.
Johnny Jaan is a major artist- his skill in the use of light, his loving focus on the softer side of leg art, his compositional skill make him a true heir to Elmer Batter’s pioneering work. They speak on behalf of those who need to be outed into a new social and artistic form I would like to call Aretific Aesthetics: the love of the mystery of women’s feet.
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