A Few Words About Content

A few words about content

“Golly….that guy’s naked! I wish they’d cover that up so I could really enjoy it the way Michelangelo meant it to be enjoyed…”

You are no doubt aware that one of the objections lodged by people against art is that it sometimes features visual representations of objectionable or offensive material. This can run from basic human nudity to eroticism to placing a crucifix into a vat of human urine.

I need to establish from the outset that while neither I nor the college desires or intends to offend anyone, there may be cases where such offense may occur. The purpose of this memo is to make you aware of potentially offensive material contained in the Art History course.

The visual arts fall into several basic categories, including representations of the human form, representations of other aspects of the natural world, and non-representational abstraction. Each category features worldview elements that may be offensive to others (many object to abstraction itself for a variety of reasons) but it is the first category that generally can cause problems.

Artists generally begin their training with learning to draw, and the primary object of their attention is the human form. Artists study images and sculpture as well as actual human models. This process of learning to represent human anatomy involves, as you may be aware, the careful study of nude models. (Don’t expect anything like that here!) These drawings, and many of the paintings, sculptures, and other pieces developed from them, present Christian viewers with a special set of problems that should be worked through carefully at the individual level, with an especial eye to the doctrine and reality of human depravity.

Human beings are visual creatures and can be stimulated by art in ways that can lead to sin. This is not always going to happen in the same kinds of ways with different people, of course: see Romans 14 and related passages about the normal human variance relating to conscience issues. This is especially problematic in regards to the visual arts and other forms of cultural expression. Some Christians respond negatively and strongly to Harry Potter or dancing or fictional storytelling; others do not. Visual artists strike many Christians as a particularly strange and potentially dangerous or subversive group. It is not an inaccurate commonplace that artists often tend to be liberal politically, socially, personally, and sexually. The relationship between these categories is complex (was Picasso morally loose because he was an artist, or was it the other way around?) and needs to be treated with care.

After the Fall, human nature responds to bodily exposure with shame (unless you sear your conscience, of course). This is so powerful that it is often carried over into marriage, though this is neither biblical nor healthy for the relationship. Simply put: God will give you exactly one body of the opposite sex to enjoy, and that only in marriage. Of course, you will see, to varying degrees of exposure, many other bodies. Actual body exposure of the front and back in the waist/hips region, as well as the female breast, is widely understood in most (though not all) cultures to be inappropriate beyond young childhood.

The central issue here, and one which we will be discussing at great length all semester long, is the concept of representation – called by the Greeks mimesis. This goes to the heart of the most central of all philosophical issues: the questions “what is?” And “what is real?” And while one could say “well, a painting or photograph of a human body is not real,” the temptation you might find yourself wrestling with will be very real indeed. Images are powerful things and they generally stay imprinted on your mind (except during cumulative finals).

Drawings, paintings and sculptures may have levels of nudity that will naturally make you uncomfortable or even cause you personal temptation. We will deal with these issues in class discussion about these media. Some of the images you will see contain varying levels of nudity, particularly during the Renaissance and the late 19ᵗʰ and 20ᵗʰ centuries. Photography is an entirely different matter; an actual human form captured in time in a moment of nudity, whether apparently erotic or not, is (even if not actually “pornographic” in the technical sense) extremely likely to lead to temptation. Such material has no value for this course and we have no need to study it. You know it’s out there, you know it’s bad, you know to stay away from it.

Levels of representation vary – a painting, no matter how realistically precise, is not the same kind of representation as a photograph. But is a photograph of a nude man or woman in a clinical and non-erotic manner as dangerously stimulating as an extremely erotic and explicit painting of sexual activity? In this class, of course, we will be viewing neither – but careful consideration of these kinds of questions and others like them, in light of the clear text of scripture, can clarify for us how deep our depravity runs and how careful we need to be in what we expose our eyes and minds to.

For those images which feature aspects of the human form, we need to be very careful even with our descriptive language. We can avoid both inappropriate levity and shallow vulgarity by agreeing upon certain limitations in terminology at the outset. In both discussion and writing, genitalia and the genital area as a whole, whether exposed or not, should be referred to as “the pudendum,” plural “pudenda,” and adjectivally as “pudendal.” This term is most often applied in the feminine case but is also appropriate for the male form, and using it for both cases will equalize and therefore provide a more comfortable “distancing” in our discussions. (In case you’re wondering, it will be rarely if ever necessary to discuss this topic.)You may use the word “breast” or “bust” to refer to the female anatomy if it is appropriate. “Posterior,” or my favorite, “southern hemisphere” may be used for the gluteal regions.

Finally, let me advise you that if any of this makes you uncomfortable, or if you are worried about being offended or tempted in any way, you should discuss this with me and you probably should not take this course. As a non-required elective course it should be clear that no one will be compelled to violate a sincere conscience. Furthermore, if you feel that none of these issues are a concern and you think I’m being too cautious or uptight, you should very carefully examine your own conscience – it may be well-done when it ought to be no more than medium-rare. Our depravity is better at fooling ourselves than fooling others, in case you haven’t noticed. I want to avoid prodding you towards ungodly thoughts and actions in either case.