Venus and the London underground
'Shameless' 16th century painting banned
February 20, 2008
Joshua Gregg
Thursday, February 14, 2008, the London transit system banned 16th century painter Lukas Cranach the Elder’s nude Venus from the Tube. The piece was printed and posted all over London’s underground railways advertising a Lukas Cranach exhibition at London’s Royal Academy of Arts. CBS Outdoor, responsible for monitoring ads posted in London, affirmed on Thursday that the painting was far too risqué for tourists and residents alike.
The painting depicts Venus – the Roman goddess of love, beauty and fertility – pale and nude, seductively gazing through the painting. She is posed holding a translucent veil before her seemingly fertile stomach, against a black foreground, with a murky, brown half-oval around her feet.
A Transport for London spokesman said, “Millions of people travel on the London Underground each day and they have no choice but to view whatever ads are posted there. We have to take into account the full range of travelers and endeavor not to cause offence in the adverts we display,” which made the Royal Academy reconsider its advertisement.
“We thought this campaign through and it’s very disappointing,” says a spokesperson from the Royal Academy. “The decision was greeted with disbelief; in this day and age it’s ludicrous that a painting that’s 500 years old can’t be used on a poster.”
Interestingly enough, weeks before this ban, the same officials in London banned an advertisement put out by the Sadler’s Wells performing arts theatre for Insane in the Brain, a street dance version of Ken Kesey’s novel One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. In graffiti-style type base, this ad depicted a photo of a smiling nude male holding a red clock to block out his genitalia.
Despite the ban, on Friday, Feb. 15, 2008, London transit issued a statement saying, “Having taken another look at the Sadler’s Wells poster, we think we were wrong to turn this one down and have now approved the ad to be carried on the Tube. Our advertising policy is currently under review and we will be issuing updated guidance in due course.”
Little nuances like this make me stop and think. An advertisement displaying a classic piece of art, roughly 500 years old, is being trumped by some nude moron with his hat on backwards, holding a clock in front of his penis. The first thing running through my head is the dialogue that must be going on at the Royal Academy. I can see them, aristocrats, studiously trying to reconsider their Lukas Cranach ad, knowing that they must, regardless, advertise for the show. Suddenly they hear the news, probably a few silent stares, then laughter and several cynical glances toward each other, under their wrinkled foreheads.
“A clock, of course,” they’d say to one another.
Most of all, though, I wonder about the gaze of Venus. Throughout the history of art, the eyes of the female nude have been exceedingly more controversial than the reality of her uncovered flesh. When her eyes look through the painting at you, you become connected – she sees you looking at her, and she is shamelessly seductive.
London holds laws against ads that “depict men, women or children in a sexual manner, or display nude or semi-nude figures in an overtly sexual context.” In the sense of this painting becoming an ad, it retains every qualification for being banned. But, again, I wonder about that gaze of fertility, beauty, love and seduction. I wonder why that gaze so often is repressed.
Figuratively, that clock in the Insane in the Brain ad makes me think too. Has time changed Venus’ gaze? Or does that gaze still exist, amidst the power of the media, to shape our image of woman or what it means to be beautiful. We seem to withhold similar motives throughout all ages, to define beauty in the context of our time, perhaps to tame it. Consequently, this image of the shameless woman has drastically evolved into something negative, we call her the slut, the prostitute, the whore – but I think Lukas Cranach had it right with Venus and her transparent veil. The shameless woman is more prophetic than time can ever tell.
Now you go...
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