Can morphing be art -- and must it be art?

As a starting point, let me choose Hegel's definition of "art" in Vorlesungen über die Ästhetik: Art is the sensible (i.e. perceptible) manifestation of the Idea. This means: something is art if it displays the Idea in a way that can be perceived through the senses (sight, hearing...). The Idea is the concept an-und-für-sich, but the "concept" (Begriff) in Hegel has nothing to do with a "representation", something that exists only in one's mind. The "concept" is the real truth (Wirklichkeit) realizing itself in the world. The Ideal, or idea of beauty, is the sensible form of the Idea. This means that beauty is one of the forms in which the Idea actually exists in the real world. But beauty is not simply found in nature, it is also created by man's spirit desiring to improve natural occurrences.

Insofar as it deals with beauty and tries to improve it, morphing is art. It has, in fact, both the requirements of our definition: (a) it conveys beauty to our senses, and (b) it changes the "natural" beauty in a creative way. "Creative" means: before there was a natural object, e. g. a B-cupped model, and afterwards there is something else: the same model, who is not actually the same for she has changed into a D-cupped model (and may also have acquired mesmerizing eyes, or muscles, or general face/body improvement, etc.) through the activity of man's spirit.

Some may say that most of the morphs we see are not improvements. But in this case, we're facing unsuccessful attempts. The world is full of bad morphs (I'd throw half of mine, especially the early ones, into the fire), as it is full of bad paintings that we can barely call "art". But our Leonardo's Mona Lisa is art, and we call it a "painting" just like those other bad paintings. We can also say that enlarging breasts, even in a technically perfect way, is not an improvement, for it changes woman's body disproportionately. But here we fall into personal tastes. Those who know that there does not exist just the beauty, but many (infinite?) beauties (and Hegel already knew it as a necessary consequence of art's development) won't worry too much about such a remark. (That's why, I believe, I sometimes find morphs that are made with perfect technique, but are not so "creative" in their essence; and, on the other hand, I also find rather imperfect ones, that show the mark of art even from the starting point of choice of model). Now, one of the most beautiful things in art is that the same theme can be developed in different ways: the same natural basis varies according to the different shapes in which the spirit develops it. This is one of the ways in which we see that many beauties have much more Wirklichkeit than one beauty.

These are variations on the theme of St. Sebastian's martyrdom. The right one was created in 1473 by Sandro Botticelli -- better known for his works La Primavera and the Birth of Venus; it's in the Staatliche Museen of Berlin now. The left one was painted in 1480 by Andrea Mantegna -- my neighbor (he was from Padua) -- and it's in the Louvre (speaking about stolen Italian masterpieces...). Which one is better? Silly question. Here we see two views: Botticelli's saint is a youth whose soul is already on the way to heaven, even though his body is transfixed by arrows. The soul of Mantegna's Sebastian, on the other hand, is still here on earth and is begging to be released for the ascent to heaven.

Now look at these (I hope no one minds if I also display my own morphs):

The upper one is by MorphMonger. We find here his typical style: terse and precise. In my opinion, he actually improved the object. I bet Petra would be proud of his work -- but not of mine: I made her too huge for any real woman's body. Yet I have been careful with details, so that the morph, though not realistic, is coherent. Call it surrealism.

Third sample:

The upper one is by a living legend, Dr Ivan; the lower one, again, by me. As you see, Dr Ivan had the coup de génie that's missing in my version. My breasts (er, I mean the breasts I made) may look more realistic, but I had to erase the straps of the dress. He was able to keep them by reducing the area where the breasts are attached to the chest (and he made her bigger, too!)

These different techniques in developing a theme have made me more open-minded about the shape and size of breasts, in that I've learned to appreciate morphers' different styles. I never thought I would like musclewomen, for the more pectoral muscles they have, the smaller their boobs are. But then I saw Coyote's morphs. I also thought there was a limit in breast expansion, but I've enjoyed some of Gigabreast's morphs that push it beyond my preconceived limit, and so on.

And these, ladies and gentlemen, are the marks of art that give some of our morphs the power to have effects not only below your waist, but also above.

Credit to St Stephan for his usual great work in editing my English; next time I'll speak about his martyrdom...(after all he was the first, wasn't he?)