Controversy in Germany

I especially like the combination of medieval and caricature style.

Too Racy for London

Lucas Cranach the Elder, Venus, 1532,
Oil and tempera on red beechwood,
37.7 x 24.5 cm. Stadel Museum, Frankfurt am
Main, Inv. Nr. 1125. Photo © : Jochen Beyer, Village-Neuf.

LINK.

LONDON.- Transport for London has refused to display a poster of the “Venus” painting by German artist Lucas Cranach the Elder stating it was overtly sexual. This painting is one of the 70 works that will be on view at the Royal Academy of Arts on March 8 in London. According to the academy, Transport for London would only display the image if the bottom half was cropped out.

Academy spokeswoman Jennifer Francis said, “I think it is because she's totally nude as opposed to say she's topless. We're shocked. We wouldn't have put a poster design forward if we thought it was offensive."

Jennifer Francis stated that the "Venus" was chosen because it best represents Cranach's work, but the academy was uncomfortable altering the artist's work by cropping it. Jennifer Francis stated, "We actually thought it was quite an innocent painting."

Transport for London issued a statement: "We have to take account of the full range of travelers and endeavor not to cause offense in the advertising we display."

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Additional information on Cranach:

An article at all-art.org.

An article from Germany.info.
An editorial at Guardian Unlimited.

Can't Get No Respect:O'Keefe Museum Wantsto Block Deal

Article

It's becoming quite apparent that either Bentonville, Arkansas or the entire state of Arkansas is the Rodney Dangerfield of the U.S. What do outsiders think is going to happen to precious American artworks if they come to Arkansas? Do they think Billy Joe Jim Bob in his overalls and bubba teeth is going to go out with the boys and shoot paintings out of the air or hide them in Beaver dams in rivers and go noodling for them? Use them to practice target shooting with chaw? Hock them on the black market to replace them with saw blade paintings? Of course, I don't believe any of this, but the way the elitist art market is acting, you'd think that's what THEY believe. I've lived in this area for almost 13 years and I can tell you that the Bentonville area has grown by leaps and bounds and it is about time for a museum. What is the problem with these people? Sigh.

OOPS! He Did it Again

Artist Daniel Edwards has created yet another controversial celebrity portrait. The most recent one was of Britney Spears giving birth to her son on a bear skin rug. The artist is represented by Capla Kesting Gallery in Brooklyn, New York. Here are a series of articles on the latest piece, a "Plastered Paris" sculpture called The Paris Hilton Autopsy.

Capla Kesting Gallery Photo

Behold, The Paris Hilton Autopsy....

Reuters Photo

The artist has also created a "little shrine" to Red Sox player Ted Williams' head, and a portait bust of Hillary Clinton. I have to say that this guy is really starting to grow on me. What do you think? Are you offended? Why or why not? Are you acting offended but secretly (and somewhat guiltily) laughing? What kind of artist is Daniel Edwards? Please share.

A couple of short films:

Another Art Controversy

It seems like the season for controversial art of a religious nature. Easter must be in the air. First, there was the chocolate sculpture of Jesus called My Sweet Lord, and now this sculpture of Barack Obama AS Jesus.

Eakins' Painting to Stay in Philly After All

Looks like Crystal Bridges won't get to house the famous painting. I, for one, am very disappointed.

Butt PainterWarning: Might Be Offensive to Some

Here's an interesting story. Be sure to watch the attached story and share what you think.

Book Review: "The Origin of Satan" by Elaine Pagels

I finally finished this book. It took me so long because it is a lot to chew on, especially when you don't have a lot of time to enjoy a good book. As the title implies, this book gives us the chronicle of the life, history, character, and personality of the being called "Satan." Elaine Pagels does a thorough job as always elucidating complex theology and theological history for the lay person. The entity of Satan has changed numerous times over Judeo-Christian history. This is the history she focuses on and does not address other religions' evil entities.

Satan starts out as part of God's world, employed by him as an obstructor or adversary to human events. He is meant as a challenger as well as a stumbling block:

"Although Hebrew storytellers as early as the sixth century BCE occasionally introduced a supernatural character whom they called the satan, what they meant was any one of the angels sent by God for the specific purpose of blocking or obstructing human activity. The root (of the word) means "one who opposes, obstructs, or acts as adversary." (The Greek term "diabolos," later translated "devil," literally means "one who throws something across one's path.")"

In this version of Satan, he is not necessarily malevolent, "as the literary scholar Neil Forsyth says of the satan, "if the path is bad, an obstruction is good.""

So, here begins the character history of Satan. Even his name is lowercase as if it is a job description and not a reflection of the entity's character. Gradually, as Pagels explains through the book, Satan began to take on personhood, became prideful, fell, became malevolent, was an outsider ("other"), took on a spiritual dimension, then was someone on the inside of a group or a person, and ultimately is engaged in cosmic battle with God and his angels. This does not really contradict the religious story that much. What's interesting to observe is what corresponds with these changes in the character of Satan.

When he is an adversary or stumbling block, the ancient Jews are struggling. He is the satan, not Satan. He is the person who works for God who keeps them from accomplishing their goals and guides them in the correct direction, even if it is painful. During the Maccabean wars, some Jews were dissatisfied with the breakdown of their community. It is this period in which Satan falls from grace, becomes a spiritual being, and is defined as an enemy -- during a time of war. The first time a spiritual battle between Satan and God is explored is when the Essenes divide from the mainstream Jewish people and try to follow their own legalistic precepts. Their personal battle is moralistic -- so a battle in heaven must be going on. During early Christianity, Satan vacillates from being the enemy without and within at the same time the Jews are being taught as outside God's plan unless they accept Christ. The Jews, to Christians, are at once, brothers of early Christians (since a lot were Jewish), and outsiders because they won't become Christian. This builds up the idea of a spiritual battle even more. Then, Satan is portrayed as an outsider during the persecution of the early church--which comes as no surprise as the Pagan government was responsible, and they were not like the early Christians--they were "other (outside)". After the early church is established, heretics rise in the ranks to question official church doctrine. It is then that Satan moves within again. The spiritual battle is in full force within the church. After the various protestant sects emerge and the world is proliferated with dozens of Christian denominations, Satan becomes the leader of a COSMIC battle without and within--determined to destroy the church and all believers (indeed, the world) in a final apocalyptic battle.

This is a crude summary, but hopefully, the reader will get the pattern I got. Satan starts out as a minor annoyance and teacher at worst to the future destroyer of mankind. That's quite a change in character over the span of about 2000 years. It seemed to me, after reading Pagels' book that we humans, who have a tendency to make God in OUR image, have done the same with Satan. If we are just struggling, Satan is a pain. If our families are disintegrating, Satan is in spiritual battle within the unit. If our cherished institutions are threatened, Satan is in battle with us. If the nature of our beliefs or faith are attacked, he is apocalyptic in his goals. When he was an adversary, his scale was personal and tribal in scope. When the institutional church perceives an attack and other competiting interpretations of faith abound, he becomes COSMIC and destructive.

So, we have over the brief amount of historical time, projected our darker selves onto either a real or imagined being. I've always found it interesting that people blame God or Satan about equally for their behavior or circumstances, and rarely take their own responsibility for these things. Hmmm. Discuss.

Elaine Pagels

© Stephanie Lewis, 2006

I'm Starting to NOT like Dale Chihuly

This is ridiculous. Can you imagine if Caravaggio sued his various copiers-of-style, or Rembrandt, or Rubens? You can definitely tell we are living in the 21st century. People can be such babies. Chihuly could just step down from his ivory tower for just a minute and make BETTER work than anybody if he is the 'master' that he proclaims to be. Whatever happened to just being happy with being better and flattered that people wanted to copy you? Now artists have to sue each other? It's very unbecoming. A house divided against itself cannot stand--and we artists have to stick together. Sad.

This Does Not Give Me Hope

Feel like ending women's suffrage? These ladies do.

suffrage: def. the right to vote in a political election or the exercise of this right.

V for Vendetta: Ideas Are Bulletproof

I have only this to say....Go see this movie while films with content of this sort are still legal. ; )

The Male Nude: Style and Substance

This is a very interesting article about the depiction of the male nude over time and context. The two best points made by the author of this commentary are 1) that the Greeks made the body (particularly the male--in the democratic, yet, un-egalitarian culture) a philosophy; and 2) that the body as depicted by Greeks is primarily intellectual and secondarily sexual; the order switches when personal style is introduced. "Greek athletes are abstract," says the author, Jonathan Jones. This is certainly a compelling point.

Jones discusses the comedic quality of Canova's statue of Napoleon in the Apsley House--it is both sexual and absurd. Then he takes us through ancient Greece, the Renaissance, the Baroque, and all the way up to modern fashion ads by Calvin Klein and Dolce & Gabbana. Polykleitos's famed canon of male proportions are highly intellectual and abstract; and, even though the character is muscular and nude, sexuality is secondary. Simply by the act of creating a "canon," almost all stylistic sexuality is dissolved. He points how Leonardo da Vinci's "Vitruvian Man" is cosmological and not sexual.

Caravaggio was no idealist. He showed people warts and all, and was not afraid of showing them in an unflattering light (no pun intended). Jones states that Caravaggio's Bacchus is clearly marked with the artist's style, thus sexualizing it. A statuesque figure of a street urchin becomes fleshy and real in form and in context/content and connotatively tactile and sensual. In Caravaggio's Deposition, "the nude has become unheroic, pitiful, and human." Donatello's David reeks with stylized sexuality. "David wears leg armour that sets off his nudity. His buttocks are emphasized. The bronze of an adolescent, hand on hip, huge sword in his hand, is mounted on marble and you walk right around him, painfully aware of the sensuality of the polished metal." Jones also argues that Church's denunciation of nudity during the Renaissance and Baroque periods only made the works more sexual/sensual (forbidden fruit).




The ancient Greek masculine figure was a mathematical and philosophical construction--almost too cerebral to be erotic. The figures were regular, systematic, and abstract with "crisp idealism." What actually confronts the viewer's feelings about sexuality (their own in particular) is an artist's particular style, not the nudity itself. This might not seem like a new idea, but Jones elucidates it in a humorous and intelligent way.

Other images mentioned in Jones's commentary....

Caravaggio, The Victorious Cupid

Myron, The Discus Thrower

Michelangelo, Victory

© Stephanie Lewis, 2006

Postsecret

I added another link to my links at right. The site is called Postsecret. It's VERY interesting and sometimes moving and a site you can check again and again. Be forewarned: some of the language, information, and imagery may be objectionable to some.