Sunday night on BBC4 there were a couple of items of interest, the first posed the question what is wrong with nudity?
They didn't really arrive at a conclusion, but some of the tests were interesting. There was one were the subjects were fitted with goggles to monitor where they were looking, then nudes were put in front of them and not one of them stared at the genitalia, most looked at the whole body and one stared determinedly at the eyes of the nudes. He obviously had hang ups about nudity, but the rest behave as most nudists do. I think for a control group they should have performed the tests on a group of nudists as well.
The second program was about the fig leaf in art.
They demonstrated that, far from covering the area the fig leaf attracted attention to it. But the history was interesting, they asked where and when the prudery came from. It seems that apart from historic manoeuvrings, the restrictions that affect us today came from the church in the middle ages. I suppose for someone who is denied the sight of naked members of the opposite sex, the sight of a nude painting or statue must be highly sexual or erotic and if they aren't allowed the pleasures which their God designed them for, no-one else should enjoy them.
Then Monday night Mary Beard pontificating about nude art.
Lecturing on the eroticism and sexualisation of statues from as far back as ancient Greece and paintings from nearly as long ago. I was looking at them as she held forth on her subject and for the life of me I could not see the eroticism and sexualisation she was talking about. Nudes, both male and female were just that, male and female nudes. Is Michelangelo's 'David' either erotic or sexual and what about Botticelli's 'Birth of Venus' or (appropriate for this blog) Goya's 'Naked Maja'.
It was obvious the she could not separate nudity from sex, so any nude statue or painting was sexualising the model. I cant help thinking these airy-fairy art critics should get a proper job.
