A handout photo of a painting entitled ''Venus'' by Lucas Cranach Source: Stadel Museum via Bloomberg News
By Martin Gayford
LONDON, England (Bloomberg News), February 22, 2008:
So fig leaves won't be mandatory on London's Circle Line after all.
As commuters may have noticed, Transport for London, the organization responsible for operating the U.K. capital's underground railway, last week achieved a feat beyond the most talented of publicists.
It succeeded in making the musty 16th-century German painter Lucas Cranach the Elder (1472-1553) headline news throughout the world. TfL, as it is abbreviated, banned a poster publicizing a coming exhibition of Cranach's work at the Royal Academy. This depicted Venus wearing, as Maev Kennedy of the Guardian who broke the story, put it, nothing but "a triumphant smirk."
There was a brief interval during which newspapers, bloggers and the Royal Academy expressed outrage and incredulity. Then TfL shamefacedly rescinded the ban, muttering something about it being difficult to get it right all the time.
There the matter rests. Venus will appear all over the Tube, her private parts undisguised by foliage. The academy can doubtless not believe its luck in getting such a torrent of publicity for a slightly obscure show.
My only reason for resurrecting this strange -- and possibly very British -- affair is to point out an overlooked point. Cranach's Venus may be 500 years old, it may be, as the academy spokeswoman put it, ``delicately painted.'' Still, it most definitely is, or at least is intended to be, sexy.
Bureaucratic Brouhaha
Naturally, I don't attempt to defend TfL's weird behavior, or speculate on what, if anything, was in the mind of the minor bureaucrat who sparked off this brouhaha.
Let's be clear. The only travelers likely to be offended by the poster of Venus are the large group of art lovers who can't stand Cranach. But they would be just as offended by a portrait of the artist's friend Martin Luther, looking constipated.
However, it is a fact of art history that the mythological guises assumed by so many 16th- and 17th-century nudes were just excuses for depicting naked people. There was a strange compartmentalization of the European psyche on this matter.
Phillip II of Spain zealously burned heretics, while privately enjoying numerous pictures of nude female flesh painted ``delicately'' and sensually by Titian. Contemporaries made few bones about it. Titian's previous Venus, a papal legate wrote approvingly to a cardinal, looks like a nun compared with his current picture. The cardinal bought the painting.
Aging Pinups
On the other side of the religious divide, it was much the same. Cranach was, as mentioned before, friendly with the great Protestant reformer, Luther, who was godfather to the painter's daughter. Cranach did numerous portraits of Luther as well as illustrations for his translation of the Bible.
Cranach, however, also churned out a series of nudes, which look much like the ancestresses of the pinups, which are a popular feature of the German tabloid press today. Of course, the Cranach pictures are art, whereas the page-three girls are not. That doesn't stop them from having a lot in common.
For centuries, critics and commentators tried to explain why nudes in art were ``pure,'' morally uplifting, and had nothing to do with sex. No one ever made this argument sound convincing. Still, Transport for London ought to be able to tell the difference between an old master and a pinup: If you ban an old master the whole world is going to laugh at you, and rightly so.
"Cranach" will be at the Royal Academy, London, from March 8 through June 8.
Martin Gayford is a critic for Bloomberg News. The opinions expressed are his own. E-mail: martin@cgayford.freeserve.co.uk
