Friday Art Reflection – Nudity In Art
When it comes to discussing art with many other Christians, the issue of nudity (and for some, then, pornography) inevitably comes to the forefront. Perhaps no work of nude art is better known in the Western world than Michelangelo’s “David”. To me, this sculpture is a tribute to a man whose comprehension and masterful skill could breathe life into stone. And yet, for some, it is considered an offensive, even pornographic display of nakedness. Thankfully, this is getting to be far less common view of such works as “David”, but the issue is far from resolved in the wider sphere of arts and culture.
Nudity is a strange issue. While someone might find the bare buttocks of someone “mooning” to be offensive nudity, where very little skin is actually showing, they might have little to no problem with a pair of boxers duking it out in nothing more than shorts. This of course reveals that our issues with nudity are far more nuanced than we might realize. Christians often cite the story of Adam, Eve and original sin to justify their hard stance against all things nude, but these suggests that nudity was the original sin, which we all know is not the case.
Dealing with nudity in art is particularly challenging for Christians, as Christian appreciation and contribution to the arts has declined significant in the last few centuries (with some hopeful, if minimal, signs of recovery). While I won’t get into the history of the how’s and why’s of this reality, I will say that it has left the church with a crippling inability to participate in the dynamics of one of God’s greatest gifts to humanity. Where nudity is concerned, we are further crippled by a poor theology of sexuality.
When considering nudity in art, we cannot ignore the hyper-sexualized nature of Western culture today. I truly believe that, in a pattern reflected elsewhere in history, a great deal of the responsibility for this trend falls to the Church, who too often demonized sex and sexuality, creating the equally extreme permissiveness that emerged (See the parallel development of the Cathars and the troubadours). While one does not justify the later, as Christians we need to simultaneously respond to the dangerous trend of hyper-sexuality in our culture, while acknowledging that excessive restriction or prudishness only contributes to the problem (as it has at our hands many times before).
I will say that I am not as opposed to the use of nudity in art, but I will withhold more details of my perspective until after we have some good discussion on the topic.
