The latest statue to incur vigorous protests is the statue of a mermaid at Monopoli in South East Italy. It's said to be unrealistic, with large breasts and a large bottom.
Adolfo Marciano, head teacher at the Luigi Rosso art school, whose students created the sculpture, said "The mermaid is like a tribute to the great majority of women who are curvy, especially in our country. It would have been very bad if we had represented a woman who was extremely skinny."
Anyway, who says a statue has to be "realistic"? The whole point of art surely is that artists can express themselves however they want. If art always had to be realistic, an awful lots of famous sculptures and paintings would have to be scrapped.
But this sort of controversy over an art work is a regular occurrence. The head teacher of a Florida school was forced to resign in March after parents complained they weren't told that lessons would feature Michelangelo's David, which one of them said was pornographic.
In 2002 the US Justice Department was reported to have spent thousands of dollars on curtains to hide a number of nude statues from photo ops. Three years later they changed their mind and removed the curtains.
So what is it about a nude artwork that gets people so steamed up? It's simply a depiction of the human body and all its physical features. Why do they find the human body so embarrassing? Have they never seen one before?
Pic: the controversial statue
Lol, well that mermaid is something else! But, art is art and it’s weird to complain about inanimate objects when there’s actual livestream sex acts at the click of a mouse.
ReplyDeleteBijoux: Quite. Why all the fuss over an inanimate object?
DeleteHonestly, the world is going backwards.
ReplyDeleteBijoux is right.
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Ms Scarlet: The world is certainly going backwards when it comes to civilised behaviour. The only thing that's advancing is technology.
DeleteI couldn't care less. Soon that statue will be covered in pigeon shit anyway.
ReplyDeleteHowever, since you brought up the subject: Mermaids do not have bottoms (that's the whole point of the tail!) - particularly not bottoms shaped like a Kardashian behind. Neither do mermaids (the clue lies in the word "maiden", ie young girl) have immovable breasts shaped like oversized canon ball melons fashioned by a surgeon and his fee.
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Ursula: Why some women want massive, rock-hard breasts (and I encountered some in my younger days) defeats me.
Deletethecontemplativecat here. We visited Rome and were surprised at the de-emasculated male statues. We were told that there were crates of many penes (lots and lots of plural of penis) in warehouses.
ReplyDeletecontemplativecat: Really? Crates of them in warehouses? The mind boggles!
DeleteWhy not just cover up that Kardashian woman. If anything is abnormal, that is.
ReplyDeleteFly: Well, that's one possibility. Some other public figures should be covered up as well.
Deletemmm I have nothing against curvy ladies, it's good to see all sizes in adverts now, but I don't like the mermaid, I agree with Ursula, they have tails, not bottoms, and particularly not the horrendous Kardashian type.
ReplyDeletePolly: Different strokes for different folks, as they say! It's a strange version of a mermaid, but I don't find it offensive.
DeletePeople really do need to lighten up when it comes to this sort of thing.
ReplyDeleteMary: They do. There are much more urgent and important issues to make a fuss about.
DeleteBeatrice says: "Nick, this post was an interesting read and honestly I can't see why people make such a fuss over nude statues, especially the classical ones. Earlier today, I watched the attendees at the Metropolitan gala (NYC) and many of the women's and some men's outfits left little to the imagination.
ReplyDeleteBeatrice: I don't know why some women are so keen on wearing the skimpiest outfit they can get away with.
DeleteDoesn't the fact that the sculpture is a mermaid establish that it's not realistic? I think the people getting worked up over things like that have way too much time on their hands.
ReplyDeleteThe whole concept of mermaids appalls me. A woman who can't run on dry land and is naked to boot. A porno fantasy. I don't know why statues cause such offence. I think it truly is based on the prudishness of churches and sex being such a terrible sin. In my time even thinking about it had to be confessed. So there's that.
ReplyDeleteXO
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www: Absolutely, the very concept of the mermaid is misogynistic. But oddly enough, nobody seemed to be complaining about the idea of mermaids as such.
DeleteI think the head teacher's comments are very sensible.
ReplyDeleteLiz: Exactly. How is her body "unrealistic"? I'm sure plenty of women have the same proportions. In any case, since when did sculpture have to be "realistic"?
DeleteI've never thought of mermaids as a misogynistic idea but now that it's pointed out.....
ReplyDeleteApart from the misogyny, I quite like the statue and no representation of any body can be representative of us all. At least it's not glorifying some pillaging man
Kylie: I wonder how men would react to the idea of being a mermaid with a huge and cumbersome tail and no legs?
DeleteIt really is very strange. I don't see the problem at all.
ReplyDelete