Nature's Pencil: Inspiration: Robert Mapplethorpe
Mapplethorpe gained notoriety through his explicit photographs of homosexuality, and his images of male and female nudity, but there is a lot more to his work than that.
A few years ago the British art critic Brian Sewell tried to argue that photography in general, and the works of Mapplethorpe in particular, cannot be art. Sewell's argument lacked substance and logic, so he used weasel words, and psychological twists, to try to make you feel bad or stupid if you didn't agree with him. The article was written after Mapplethorpe's death, so he couldn't defend himself.
I'll defend him:
Mr. S, one image from Flowers is worth more than all the art criticism that has ever been written.