Fair comment Bill D. To be honest, I think my post was more of a knee-jerk reaction against Heinleins take there, than a genuinely considered thought on the Rodin piece in question.

As for an oak tree not addressing the same emotional 'place' as a woman? I don't know about that for me personally. But then I've always suspected I'm a little autistic! ;-)

Well, I guess for each of us, our associations will naturally differ and inform our personal experience of perceiving any work of art.

But as soon as she becomes personalised as a woman that the viewer may have a typically human emotional relationship with (a Wife, Mother, Grandmother, or even Lover etc.) rather than simply "A Thing of Beauty" in and of herself, then her beauty becomes conditional to the specific type of emotional "other" relational counterpoint to the "I" which she is taking.

I have this awful feeling I'm talking total bollox as usual, but I'm sorta grasping at something I can't quite get a handle on.