[WikiEN-l] Titian, Titanic, and titillation

Tue Apr 19 00:08:17 UTC 2005

The whole Kate Winslet thread seems amazingly overwrought, because it's 
such a _bad_ example of a potential problem. It's a bad example because 
it combines the _maximum_ of gratuitiousness (it's not at all necessary 
to select this particular scene to illustrate the movie) with the 
_minimum_ of indecency. The indecency, if there is any at all, exists 
only because we know, are told, or understand the context to be erotic, 
not because of the actual pictorial content.

On the other hand, Wikipedia contains a nice, large, high-resolution 
image which Mark Twain called

     the foulest, the vilest, the obscenest picture the world
     possesses--Titian's Venus.  It isn't that she is naked
     and stretched out on a bed--no, it is the attitude of
     one of her arms and hand.  If I ventured to describe the
     attitude, there would be a fine howl--but there the
     Venus lies, for anybody to gloat over that wants to--and
     there she has a right to lie, for she is a work of art,
     and Art has its privileges.  I saw young girls stealing
     furtive glances at her; I saw young men gaze long and
     absorbedly at her; I saw aged, infirm men hang upon her
     charms with a pathetic interest.  How I should like to
     describe her--just to see what a holy indignation I
     could stir up in the world--just to hear the
     unreflecting average man deliver himself about my
     grossness and coarseness, and all that.

It is at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Venus_of_Urbino.jpg and, of 
course, linked in the Titian article. But I advise those who would fain 
keep their fancy pure not to look at it, but to content themselves with 
Mark Twain's description.

Nobody seems to be complaining about it.

--
Daniel P. B. Smith, dpbsmith at verizon.net
"Elinor Goulding Smith's Great Big Messy Book" is now back in print!
Sample chapter at http://world.std.com/~dpbsmith/messy.html
Buy it at http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1403314063/