At 09:52 AM 11/3/98 -0600, you wrote:

>I wonder what will be next for Barbie/Mattel!  I just find the use of that
and similar
>images inappropriate.  To take an image out of context, without
information on the
>image or the artist, is not a good thing.

Well, it may not be a good thing, but, certainly, it is not always a bad
thing.  Artistic appropriations have been the means by which for centuries,
if not for millennia, the visual arts have evolved and bent to cultural
needs.  Rarely in these time-frames have artists felt the need to footnote
such borrowings.  This has occurred only in our Age of Documentation. Nor
is it useful to adopt an elitist disdain for the workings of folk, popular
and commercial borrowings.

For those interested in these things, I have documented and discussed
several "borrowings" of the Mona Lisa on my personal web-page and have
provided a growing page of links to other Mona Lisa appropriations.
Needless to say, the purpose of my essay is to demonstrate that the facts
of the borrowings and the results of the borrowings are culturally
significant.  Here is the URL:  http://www.pipeline.com/~rabaron/MONALIST.htm

Enjoy.

Robert Baron
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