As a Florida principal was forced to resign after students were shown Michelangelo’s statue of David, Kelly Grovier takes a look at the history of censorship in the art world.
When the principal of a charter school in Florida was recently forced to resign after parents alleged that their children had been exposed to pornography when shown photos of the Renaissance master Michelangelo’s sculpture of the biblical figure David, many around the world were surprised. That itself is surprising. Almost since the moment that the 17ft (5m)-high nude marble statue was chiselled into scandalous shape in around 1504, Michelangelo’s masterpiece has stood its ground against perennial accusations of indecency. The sculpture hadn’t even strutted its way through the 16th Century before being fitted with a ludicrous loincloth of metal fig leaves to mitigate its immodesty. It was only in the middle of the 20th Century that similar leaves were finally plucked from the groin of a cast replica of the famous statue on display at the Victoria & Albert Museum in London, which had been given to Queen Victoria in 1857.
The controversial decision taken by the board of Tallahassee Classical School to pressure principal Hope Carrasquilla to quit provides the perfect opportunity to reflect on which works in modern history, while considered by some observers to be unacceptably shocking, have changed the way we think about art. What follows are 10 works created in the years since the fig leaves were removed from the V&A’s David that have shocked contemporary sensibilities and helped redefine the very essence of art.
No comments yet. Be the first to comment!