The Great Art of Concealment:
Censorship Versus Renaissance Nudity

It is impossible to guess what next time will offend people’s feelings. Not so long ago, researchers from the University of Cambridge found a skirt in the Renaissance manuscript, drafted by naked Eve in one of the illustrations. Rejection of nudity was not something special: for some time between the 16th and 18th centuries, especially prim owners of books painted over the nudity of biblical characters, even though it was recognized and revered by the church.

And nowadays there are not a few cases when the art of the Renaissance is recognized so sensual and provocative that it is censored or even destroyed. For centuries, works of art have been lost or destroyed for many reasons, but suspiciously often this concerned precisely the images of naked people. A vivid example of this is the picture Leda and the Swan by Leonardo da Vinci , one of the first to openly show carnal relationships in art.

Today, this picture is known only from sketches and copies, there is a version that the French owner intentionally destroyed the canvas. Another religious fanatic also destroyed the original Michelangelo’s painting, depicting Leda in the process of intercourse with Zeus taking the form of a Swan, and destroyed perverted, as contemporaries testify to. Even a copy of the painting, which is in the National Gallery in London, has a contradictory story: in the 19th century, the painting hung in the director’s office, who considered the painting too disgusting to be put on public display.

Until recently, the National Gallery housed yet another colorful Renaissance painting, censored as Eve from the Cambridge Manuscript. It’s about a magnificent sensual canvas "Allegory with Venus and Cupid" (An Allegory with Venus and Cupid, Bronzino), written by Bronzino around 1545. In the XIX century, an unknown author tried to give the picture a “worthy” look, covering Venus with a veil, and the exposed buttocks of Amur with a myrtle branch. In 1958, restorers cleared the picture, presenting the Bronzino masterpiece in all its beauty.

Why has so often great art been censored for centuries? In the Renaissance, there was an explosion of the carnal in art, prim Europe again discovered the beauty of the human body, including through the freedom of ancient Greek and Roman thought, which went against religious beliefs and holy wars, not to mention later hypocritical views Victorian era.

Religion rebelled against the sexual freedom of Renaissance art. When the Sistine Chapel was opened, The Last Judgment of Michelangelo they accused him of being more suitable for a brothel than for the Pope’s personal church.

As soon as Michelangelo died, an artist was hired to cover the nudity on the fresco with “decent” draperies. Many of these idiotic covers are still there - the Vatican does not allow modern restorers to remove them. The same applies to the statue of the Risen Christ of Michelangelo in Santa Maria sopra Minerva in Rome, which for many centuries wears a ridiculous loincloth added after the artist’s death.

All these cases actually serve as further evidence of the power of great art. The Renaissance is still dangerous, it still excites minds and souls, even after so many years. Ask those who still want to wear trousers on ancient sculptures today.

Anna Sidorova © Gallerix.ru