Erotica

It May Come as a shock to the general public to learn the extent to which most of the world's great artists have employed their genius to depict sex in all its aspects, including such activities as masturbation, human-animal sexual contacts, oral-genital sex and every other conceivable variety of sexual experience. These works of art have hitherto been unfamiliar to the great majority of art lovers-and usually are known, and then only by reputation, solely to the most dedicated connoisseurs and scholars. As opposed to widely--though clandestinely--circulated graphic crudities, these genuine works of art have been locked away in the private rooms of museums and galleries, jealously hoarded and hidden by collectors and blotted out of most histories of art, as if they had disappeared down one of the incendiary memory holes of George Orwell's 1984.

The history of erotic literature provides an illuminating contrast with the saga of (text continued on page 294) Erotica (continued from page 201) erotic art. Despite the persistence of book burning, even into our own time, the bolder and bawdier works of Aristophanes, Rabelais, Shakespeare, Ovid, D. H. Lawrence and others have survived countless suppressions; millions have read them, and every educated man at least knows that these giants of literature wrote such books. The average museumgoer, however, will be surprised to learn that similar works, in the visual rather than verbal medium, were produced by men such as Tintoretto, Rembrandt and Picasso.

That this revelation occasions shock stems from the fact that puritan taboos tend to linger longer over the "hot" visual arts than over the "cool" literary arts. Learning that Rembrandt portrayed sexual intercourse in realistic detail strikes many with the same impact as if they had been told that the Dutch master did the illustrations for a Mutt and Jeff eight-pager. It is to lie hoped that this reaction is doomed and that it will vanish as the public begins to accept the fact that sexually explicit works, although under heavy ban, are a major part of man's artistic heritage. It is, quite obviously, as natural for a painter to explore sex frankly as it is for a poet, playwright or novelist.

Since we recently took a holiday from our own field of clinical psychology to arrange the first public showing in modern times of erotic painting and sculpture (held from May through July in Lund, Sweden; during September in Denmark; and scheduled for showing in Stockholm's Liljevalchs Museum from April 2. 1969, through May 1969), we are particularly pleased to write the text for this preview of what will be a Playboy series of illustrated articles on artistic erotica, which will trace the history of this taboo-ridden art from the cave carvings of the Paleolithic Age up to the mixed-media experiments of today.

We ourselves see aesthetic, educational and even emotional benefits in visual erotica for the average art buff and museumgoer who has never been exposed to such material. He will acquire a new perspective on art; but even more importantly, he will realize that sexual subject matter can be presented with artistry, with beauty, sometimes with humor--and often with greatness. He will learn that sexual material need not be restricted to the sordid and amateurish treatment found in hard-core visual pornography; he will learn that sex has been the inspiration and sometimes the preoccupation of men of genius. This cannot help but allay anxieties, shame and misgivings that have been created by our society's traditional under-the-counter approach to erotica.

But artists themselves may perhaps benefit most from this series. As the distinguished French painter Boris Vansier fold us alter participating in our Lund museum exhibition, "When I had a private show of my Offrandes [a series of female nudes in provocative "offering" postures] in Paris, it looked like an obsessive painter showing his obsessive work. It might have struck an observer as an oddity in painting history. But the same paintings, at this show, are in context with other artists' works and suddenly they fall into place as just another contribution to the long heritage of eroticism in art." Bringing this hidden heritage to light will give us all a clearer view of certain contemporary works that otherwise would seem bizarre, sensationalistic or, as Vansier says, "obsessive."

It is amusing that some people--a few of them ostensibly sophisticated art critics--argue about the "redeeming social value" of these art treasures. This whole framework of debate presupposes universal agreement on one nonarticulated axiom--that erotic stimulation does not constitute a positive value in itself and needs to be "redeemed" by something else. To the contrary, we hold that free expression of sexual reality (and sexual fantasy) is essential to personal well-being and social progress. In fact, far from being a threat to the moral fiber of the individual or to the fabric of society, the acceptance of erotic art is a sure sign of social health.

Enlightened people are beginning to realize this. We were particularly delighted that many parents took their children to see our show, and we observed no case of trauma or even mild shock among either group. Children merely related to the paintings and sculptures they could understand and ignored the rest. Obviously, (his is dependent upon (he altitudes of the parents. If adults showed signs of alarm, anxiety, shame or disapproval, the children would begin imputing some invisible danger to the display.

In ancient Pompeii, erotica was a common theme of wall murals in the home; we would like such sexual sanity to be reborn. If people can loosen up to the point of hanging erotic art in the home, they are affirming sex and declaring louder than in words, "I am a sexual being and I don't mind saying so."

Of course, some people will continue to find this art "offensive" and would like to see it banned from public view--no matter how extraordinarily accomplished the artists may be. All we can say to such people is that a high percentage of television programs are offensive to us personally--which is why we don't own a TV set--but we would never dream of telling other people. "We are repelled by the glorification of violence on your favorite show, so you can't look at it anymore." We ask merely for the same civility and courtesy in return. But perhaps Mencken was right in defining the puritan as a "bounder": certainly, he is an authoritarian all too willing to employ censorship to enforce what he "knows" are the "correct" viewpoints. Anybody who attempts to deny the reality and importance of sex--which is what the governments of most countries are still doing--is charting a dangerous course. Sex can never be repressed; it can only be deflected and perverted, and the forms it then takes are always ugly, never wholesome, and often deadly. Thus, we believe that the shock of releasing erotic art to a wide audience can only be beneficial. Our society badly needs such a mind-blowing experience if it is to move out of the war-making sadomasochist bag and into a more life-affirming era.

There is another social issue raised by erotic art. The Manchester Guardian spotlighted this for us when it commented that our Lund museum show was a contribution to democracy, for anybody with 60 cents in his pocket could walk in and see the exhibits. Traditionally, only the upper class has had the opportunity to see such art, the assumption being that persons of "breeding" could be trusted to cope with such things, while the "vulgar masses" would be inflamed or driven to antisocial acts by them. But our exhibition did not lead to copulation in the streets, to any recorded increase in the number of rapes or to the collapse of the family as an institution. If such a show is possible in two liberal European countries, it ought to be possible elsewhere, and the inner freedom it would produce is much needed and long overdue. For only those who are internally free are really able to contribute anything of importance to the cultural heritage of the human race.