Michelangelo’s David is pornography..?

[NotHardUp1]

That officially makes the charter school in Tallahassee only 500 years behind the Catholic church when it first put a metal fig leaf over David's dick.

I did notice that the BBC article states the intended students were 11th & 12th graders, whereas the other media states 5th & 6th.

However, the point is moot, as probably 95% of American schools, public or private, would have no problem with a classical statue or painting being the subject of art or history studies for children of either age.

The Floridians objecting and the school board caving would be exceptions in this nation of 350 million, but they do deserve the scorn they are receiving for such ignorant censorship. With any luck, some of this will stick to DeSantis.

 

[unloadonme]

I did notice that the BBC article states the intended students were 11th & 12th graders, whereas the other media states 5th & 6th.

The BBC piece actually says 11 and 12 years old. I don't think the American grade numbering system means much to the average British reader.

 

[purina]

I'm pretty sure I rubbed one out at least once at around that age to the David.

 

[NotHardUp1]

The BBC piece actually says 11 and 12 years old. I don't think the American grade numbering system means much to the average British reader.

My sloppy reading. I really thought I read that, so must have seen it in my mind's eyes instead of the words. Thanks for clarifying.

 

[gsdx]

I wonder what the people who think David is pornography think about the Kardashians?

 

[NotHardUp1]

I wonder what the people who think David is pornography think about the Kardashians?

Or if there is a significant overlap between the two constituencies. A couple of years ago, I looked up the ratings on the Kardashians and found only about two million Americans were watching the show. That's far less than 1%. The prudes in Tallahassee are surely in a similar minority, so the likely overlap could be absolutely tiny.

 

[Latimer]

Last week I was in London at the British Museum where I saw the Warren Cup which, to quote the Wikipedia article, "is an ancient Greco-Roman drinking cup decorated in relief with two images of male same-sex acts. It was purchased by the British Museum for 1.8 million pounds in 1999, the most expensive single purchase by the museum at that time." It is thought to have been cast c. 10 AD and to have been found near Jerusalem.

Warren Cup - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

I assume that the imagery was created in order to celebrate the sexual acts shown and inspire lustful thoughts, or what the US Courts used to speak of as "prurient interest" when defining obscenity. In the 1950's the cup was deemed pornographic by US Customs and was not allowed to be brought into the country.

The last time I was at the British Museum was in 2015 for the exhibition 'Defining Beauty: The Body in Ancient Greek Art'. The curators of the show stressed in both the catalogue and signage that the assembly of beautiful (almost entirely) male bodies that populated the exhibit were not intended nor perceived to be erotic, which seemed curious to me. Isn't a beautiful body by its very nature erotic?

This brought to mind an argument made by a priest in a high school theology class that one of the differences between a photograph of a naked woman in Playboy and a painting of a nude woman by Titian was that former was erotic in nature and therefore pornographic, whereas the latter was aesthetic in nature and therefore Art. He observed that while many of us might be sexually aroused by a Playboy centerfold image, none of us would be aroused by Titian's Venus of Urbino. Even at thirteen I found this doubtful. Renaissance nudes may not be particularly erotic to us today with our surfeit of photographic images, but at the time they were painted--at a time before the invention and photography and film--they were the centerfolds of their day.

Which is all to say that the David may not be pornographic, but it is erotic. That it isn't often thought of such by the general public comes from its familiarity, its ubiquity.

 

[NotHardUp1]

There is a substantive and material diffference between objects or depictions being erotic by effect, or pornographic by intent. Whereas I agree with you that the priest is equivocating about art vs. erotic.

Pornography has consistently been identified as material created explicitly to arouse sexual desire, to facilitate arousal. There are everyday images, like photographs of athletete, or beautiful people that bridge the categories of art and pornography, hence the evolution of the term "soft porn."

A toothpaste or deodorant seller may depict models using the product in minor states of undress (shirtless male, towel-wrapped female), but the intent of the depiction is to enhance the sale by portraying attractive, even sexy, models as a subliminal or overt message that the product will make the user more attractive. That is not pornography, unless it reaches a level in which the sexual component exceeds a reasonable depiction test by a judge or audience, or just community standards. One image with a man in a towel may be "hot" but not pornographic. The next, with a bulge just too much to be considered "decent" crosses the line.

When toying with the standard, advertizers take a risk, and crossing that line can get the advertizement banned.

The cup is unquestionably pornographic. Titian's Venus would likely be if included in a child's or adolescent's curriculum.

The statue of David may provoke erotic appeal, but is primariliy a depiction of strength, of Classical heroicism, specifically, the Greek god Apollo. The depiction was to bridge or overlay the Greek ideal during its Renaissance onto the Judeo-Christian legend, formerly depicted in flat, two-dimensional, and unrealistic styles. Making David into a flesh and blood hero certainly made him more sexual, but the intent of the depiction was not explicitly or manifestly sexual.

The same cannot be said for a cup whose sole imagery is sex acts, be the heterosexual or homosexual. However, the ban on pornographic imports should be subject to court adjudication. If an item's artistic value exceeds its mere use as pornography, it should reach the level of art or merit, and be allowed. And yes, the government does have the rigth to regulate publications, even those we differ witih, else snuff videos or child pornography could be allowed.

 

[pat grimshaw]

Isn't a beautiful body by its very nature erotic?

The penis can be enflamed or the mind can be enflamed.

I'm sure Kenneth Clark had something to say in his "The Nude: A Study in Ideal Form", (which I haven't looked at).

He said we must distinguishes between 'the naked and the nude. To be naked is to be deprived of our clothes, and the word implies some of the embarrassment most of us feel in that condition. The word "nude," on the other hand, carries, in educated usage, no uncomfortable overtone. The vague image it projects into the mind is not of a huddled and defenseless body, but of a balanced, prosperous, and confident body: the body re-formed".

Furthermore "the word was forced into our vocabulary by critics of the early eighteenth century to persuade the artless islanders [of the UK] that, in countries where painting and sculpture were practiced and valued as they should be, the naked human body was the central subject of art."

 

[lonley]

There is nothing at all vulgar or shameful about the human body.

The only vulgar and shameful thing here is the parents and the school. I feel sorry for the children.

Here here

 

[NotHardUp1]

I was watching some B or D or F movie the other night, in flipping channels, and it featured a marble statue, in a Greek pose, and seaweed covered it, having been raised from a wreck.

As the camera moved up the statue, a breast was apparently exposed and the image blurred out. In the next minute, every shot had the same blur.

It was on-air broadcasting, so it made me think the censoring was being imposed locally, but the station, but found that incredible. WHO censors marble statue breasts? WHO?

 

[LoveMyPeppermill]

I was watching some B or D or F movie the other night, in flipping channels, and it featured a marble statue, in a Greek pose, and seaweed covered it, having been raised from a wreck.

As the camera moved up the statue, a breast was apparently exposed and the image blurred out. In the next minute, every shot had the same blur.

It was on-air broadcasting, so it made me think the censoring was being imposed locally, but the station, but found that incredible. WHO censors marble statue breasts? WHO?

Uptight Southern Baptists?

 

[purina]

That Jesus guy hanging around in just his underpants doesn't help matters either.

 

[Peloso]

I was watching some B or D or F movie the other night, in flipping channels, and it featured a marble statue, in a Greek pose, and seaweed covered it, having been raised from a wreck.

As the camera moved up the statue, a breast was apparently exposed and the image blurred out. In the next minute, every shot had the same blur.

It was on-air broadcasting, so it made me think the censoring was being imposed locally, but the station, but found that incredible. WHO censors marble statue breasts? WHO?

Marble statue censors?

 

[Kahaih]

I have to say, this thread has amusingly drifted far from what an 11 - 12yo, just starting puberty, might understand, or even want to hear.

This thread is more likely a good argument for having age of consent laws.

 

[LoveMyPeppermill]

I have to say, this thread has amusingly drifted far from what an 11 - 12yo, just starting puberty, might understand, or even want to hear.

This thread is more likely a good argument for having age of consent laws.

Well, there are no 11- or 12-year-olds here.

 

[Kahaih]

Well, there are no 11- or 12-year-olds here.

You don't know that.

A JUB account isn't needed to read and look. We don't know who might stop by.

But, that's not really what I was getting at. Maybe it will come to you and maybe it won't. I don't care one way or the other.

 

[unloadonme]

The prudery has reached Scotland!

Glasgow subway poster blocked over Michelangelo statue nudity

The advert for an Italian restaurant showed Michelangelo's naked statue of David eating pizza.

www.bbc.co.uk

 

[pornoboy]

American tourists complaining..?
Should he have been dressed with a kilt..?

​

or try the rear view next time..?

 

[Kahaih]

/\ What we really need to know is how many times Michelangelo shot a load on that while he was working on it.

Artistic liberties and all that.