Master Breasts: Objectified, Aestheticized, Fantasized, Eroticized, Feminized by Photography's Most Titillating Masters

by Francine Prose, Karen Finley, Dario Fo

The most revealing look at breasts.

Photographs of breasts are in museums, on book covers, in fashion ads, and on posters. Alluring symbols of womanhood, breasts have fascinated generations of image makers. Here, for the first time between two covers, is the breast in the titillating breast, the maternal breast, the aging breast, and the symbolic breast.

In Master Breasts , darkly witty political images of the 1970s jostle for space with Edward Weston's classic nudes; Nan Goldin's friends share pages with Robert Mapplethorpe's gorgeously sculptured models. From Alfred Stieglitz's classic studies of Georgia O'Keeffe to Mary Ellen Mark's vivid documentary portraits, they are all here. Other artists include Cindy Sherman, Imogen Cunningham, and Sally Mann.

A witty and reflective Introduction from the acclaimed novelist and essayist Francine Prose further links the images, while a monologue from Karen Finley's recent performance piece American Chestnut, "The Detective," reveals a young girl's anguish about breast-inspired catcalls and jokes and then sardonically calls for similar cultural treatment of the male anatomy. Finally, in Nobel Prize-winner Dario Fo's radically funny play The Story of the Tige r, the benefits of breast-feeding are celebrated as never before.

Genres: Erotica

110 pages, Hardcover

First published September 30, 1998

About the author

Francine Prose is the author of twenty works of fiction. Her novel A Changed Man won the Dayton Literary Peace Prize, and Blue Angel was a finalist for the National Book Award. Her most recent works of nonfiction include the highly acclaimed Anne Frank: The Book, The Life, The Afterlife, and the New York Times bestseller Reading Like a Writer. The recipient of numerous grants and honors, including a Guggenheim and a Fulbright, a Director's Fellow at the Dorothy and Lewis B. Cullman Center for Scholars and Writers at the New York Public Library, Prose is a former president of PEN American Center, and a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Her most recent book is Lovers at the Chameleon Club, Paris 1932. She lives in New York City.

Reviews

[Leonard · Rating 4 out of 5]

This large format book with numerous photos, just like the title says, looks at the way breats are objectified, fantasized, etc. With an exceptionally (but not surprisingly) well-written introduction by Francine Prose, it also inlcudes poetry by Charles Simic and a delightful story by Dario Fo. However with only 110 pages it's difficult to see how the editors and writers of this volume selected the written works they did for this book. There is so much more availble and just as fine as the ones included. It certainly took some restraint to keep this book as short as it is.

[Carrie Turner · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wonderful collection of images. Good treasure for my collection.

[Joseph Hirsch · Rating 4 out of 5]

Some women I've known have been perplexed by male fascination/obsession with breasts. "They're just lumps of flesh" or words to that effect are the usual dismissive reaction to intense male ardor. Usually. Some women get it, though.

You don't have to be Sigmund Freud to understand what the lingering fascination, obsession, and sometimes worship (literal and figurative) of the breast throughout history and across cultural lines is about. You're born and hungry, in a kind of agony stripped from the womb and thrown into a cold new place. All of a sudden there's a warm nourishing source of food put in your mouth. That's where the "imprinting" happens, as the experts say, the imprinting which fuels everything from advertising campaigns to fashion choices to debates about public breastfeeding.

"Master Breasts" is a mostly photographic study of the subject of the female breast. It's not pornographic, and might not even be erotic, unless you get off on images of removed breasts and mastectomy scars, or tales of wounded soldiers being nursed back to health (literally) by tigresses who have pity on them (in which case, God help you, though I'm not one to judge).

What "Master Breasts" does well (maybe not "masterly") is present images of the female breast in settings ranging from burlesque shows to the bathtub. Some of the images are in color, others are in black and white. All are memorable. The text contributions range from the confessional (the Francine Prose intro is a good reminiscence on the ambivalent mix of feelings young girls feel when developing breasts) to the poetic (Charles Simic's poem is an unpretentious and well-written ode to the breast).

The book delivers on its promise, and can be read in a couple sittings or admired from time-to-time over the course of years. It would probably be a good coffee table book if the company you're planning on entertaining isn't too prudish, though most of the images within these pages are tasteful. Recommended.

[Ellison · Rating 4 out of 5]

With images, a story, and a poem this examines the existence of mams and their impact upon society. Ads, cancer, prego, nursing, male and female.