Lightly Disguised
Nov. 25th, 2022 09:02 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
poliphiloAs John Berger pointed out (he may not have been the first but he did it on TV so it had an impact) much of the high art of the past is in fact lightly disguised pornography. Give your voluptuous naked lady a jar to hold and she's St Mary Magdalen and you can place her above an altar. Put a small boy next to her and she's Venus and the Cardinal who owns her is simply displaying his familiarity with Ovid.
Here's a painting of a fetching young woman holding a severed head, but calm down, dear, it's a religious subject (Salome and John the Baptist or Judith and Holofernes- doesn't matter which) so not the least bit exciting.
We were in our favourite junk shop and I was buying pictures. The owner pulled a late Victorian print of a couple of naked boys from between two articles of furniture. "Cherubs," he said and then, with the mocking relish of someone who'd seen through the pretence, "Paedophilia..."
Here's a painting of a fetching young woman holding a severed head, but calm down, dear, it's a religious subject (Salome and John the Baptist or Judith and Holofernes- doesn't matter which) so not the least bit exciting.
We were in our favourite junk shop and I was buying pictures. The owner pulled a late Victorian print of a couple of naked boys from between two articles of furniture. "Cherubs," he said and then, with the mocking relish of someone who'd seen through the pretence, "Paedophilia..."
