The Baptism of the Lord.
And depictions of the naked Christ.
There are many Christians who have always reacted against nudity in religious art. Throughout the ages, especially since Michelangelo painted the Sistine Chapel, people have complained of the nudity of the figures. In the last several years, secular artists have portrayed Jesus naked upon the cross, and contemporary Christians have protested, as if every representation was an out of hand blasphemy. To be sure, some of the modern representations of the naked Christ have had homo-erotic overtones, but not necessarily all of them.
The Theophany.
From the earliest days of Christian iconography, Jesus has been portrayed naked - in situations appropriate to the narrative of course. The nakedness of Christ was shown mainly because it became important to demonstrate, that although he was fully God, he was at the same time fully human. It was all about the Incarnation. Therefore, Jesus is frequently shown naked in the infancy narratives, his baptism by John, and in his passion, death, and resurrection.
I believe it may be said, that in his extreme poverty and humilty, Christ allowed himself to shown naked.
Having said that, there is a good argument to be had for artists to be concerned for modesty when depicting Christ in art. I say this because of how displeased God was with the son of Noah when he exposed his father’s nakedness. “Ham saw his father’s nakedness and told his two brothers outside the tent about it.” - Genesis 9: 18-25 Having been told this, the other two brothers approached their father, walking backwards with a cloth to hide his nakedness. After Noah awoke, he knew what had happened and cursed his son.
January 13th, 2008 at 2:16 pm
I think it the nudity involving the crucified Christ should be judged on how appropriate the image in portrayed. Clearly, imagery that is homo-erotic is taking away from the savagery of His crucifixion. But then again, even the most beloved works of art who have Jesus hanging from the cross fail to capture the excruciating experience of his execution.
January 13th, 2008 at 2:52 pm
I prefer the loincloth option or at least Jesus standing up to His waist in the Jordan. It’s not necessary for me to see “that part” of Him. Sacred art doesn’t show Mary giving birth - thank goodness. I don’t really care for paintings of her nursing either where the nipple is exposed or she’s squirting milk halfway across the room into some saints mouth.Ick.
January 13th, 2008 at 5:34 pm
Angela, yeah, ick. Haven’t run across that one!
January 13th, 2008 at 7:24 pm
In the case of these two paintings I don’t have a problem with nakedness. Modern depictions of Our Lord naked tend to be done to shock and have a whiff of lewdness about them. It all depends on what’s in the artist’s head as that’s what shows up on canvas.
January 13th, 2008 at 7:41 pm
Ladies, it is not “some saint.” It is the mellifluous Saint Bernard of Clairvaux, Doctor of the Church! The experience you are referring to is the so-called miraculous lactation. It represents Saint Bernard’s identification with the poverty and dependence of the Infant Christ or, if you prefer, the little way of spiritual infancy. Like the Infant Christ, Saint Bernard chooses to become dependent on the Virgin Mother Mary. By giving Bernard of her own milk, Mary accepts Bernard as her little son together with Jesus, the blessed fruit of her womb. Not “ick,” but rather something wondrous and sublime!
January 13th, 2008 at 9:21 pm
Dear Fr. Mark,
Thank you for making this clear - the miraculous lactation. I searched for St. Bernard nursing at the side wound of Christ and could not find the example I once viewed on the net. The image is beyond the sensual modern’s capacity to comprehend. I think the depiction of the lactation is distorted in the minds of contemporarie mainly because of our modern sensuality and the accomodation to perverted sexuality which characterizes sexual mores in our culture.
January 13th, 2008 at 10:24 pm
I have seen the painting of the miraculous lactation, and while my first impression is “gross!”, I also realized that impression came from the perversion of our society. In reading of the painting and the Saint, it no longer bothered me and I could see the spiritual beauty of it.
As I understand it, Jesus WAS crucified nude…the loincloth was not used. In addition to the ultimate humiliation, he was fully exposed in his nakeness.
And the passage in Genesis about how Ham was cursed; this section always confused me. Previous to last semester, I thought he was cursed because he saw Noah naked, but no; he was cursed because he left his father in that condition and did not cover him, instead, choosing to gossip about it. There is more to it but I can’t remember the lecture!
January 14th, 2008 at 1:38 pm
Scott Hahn– yes, I know, I know, argues that uncovering his nakedness is a euphemism for Ham actually had sex with Noah’s woman who probably wasn not Mrs. Noah but a concubine.
January 21st, 2008 at 8:26 pm
yes the uncovering of the nakedness also means of everything Noah owned - and as at that time they used to swear oaths on the tribal elder male’s ‘thigh’ [i.e. penis] showing of the winky was not the problem here - the son getting his ticket stamped by his dad’s concubine is !
As for nudity and homoeroticism - fraid it aint like that - some of the most kitsch religious art has been adopted by gay cultures as apparently highly homoerotic - look at the whole Jeff koons/pierre et gilles stuff -sheer porn next to iconographic religious imagery - some of the more modern stations of the cross or paintings of saints can have that ’something’ that affects the eye of the beholder - frankly what piece of advertising now depicting the male isn’t homoerotic ? I think something just happened within culture that turned things that way - feminism has a lot to answer for in this respect - look how female sexuality [in anything other than the foullest vulgar peroxide pornography] is depicted bearing an adrogyneity or a male-like athleticism ? My friend lives in japan and was utterly bemused at the whole fascination among japanese matrons for ‘yaoi’ - male homosexual comic books - almost in the same way that lad mags/pornography over here in the west is obsessed with lesbianism [not real lesbianism - the women have to be heterosexual 'experimenters']
I don’t think nudity and homoeroticism can be equivocated away with an equivalence - I think it’s a lot more ambiguous these days ; and very often we have to transcend the homoerotic overtones and go beyond it to an appreciation of the reality of an inherant innocent beauty
when I first published my blog I was inundated with accusations that the most ostensibly benign of emotive monochromatic photos were indicative of homoeroticism - I’m a man so I used photos of men in states of sadness, loneliness, anxiety etc ; but these days that’s seen as enough to depict a sexual allure.
maybe we have to concede the issue and say ’sure, but there’s more to it - go beyond that shallow impression to the reality’
I blame a lot of it on enforced sexual and emotional repression under puritanical protestantism [which even contaminated northern european and US catholicism ] Teens are much more likely to become sexually and emotionally immature when certain truths [e.g. the intrinsic beauty [devoid of the base and sordid] of all human form - male and female] is suppressed; and overreact when aspects of themselves are denied [e.g. their attractiveness and sexual nature]
One need only look at how male homosexuality and lesbianism counteracted the cultural obsession with suppressing it - the rise of the camp and kitsch while also the obsession with hypermuscular males or defeminised roughly masculine females - the male muscle pictorials and tom of finland porn comics which thrilled the gay subcultures of past generations are now seen as utterly ridiculous and about as erotic as tapioca pudding ! they are coarse - disgusting , silly, childish, almost Nietzscheanly sad - the weakling drooling and ogling over the strong - but they are no longer perceived as subversive as they once were; especially in a word where overt homoeroticism simply holds its sway - I had a gay friend who once confessed that he and his friends only used european pornography because the US stuff wasn’t erotic - that the most erotic thing coming out of the US was an abercrombie and fitch catalogue ! That the US was still shallow enough and naiive enough to think that homosexuality was about the lust for depictions of the sexual acts and not the desire for the same sex. It’s like the old adage of the man wants to screw a blonde but marry the brunette - homosexuality may have got its kicks out of the obscenity of porn - but desired and was more emotionally involved in the whole homoerotic sides of things….
it was actually reflecting heterosexuality - men wanted marilyn monroe ; but fell in love with audrey hepburn ; women may have ogled tarzan or charlton heston rippling his biceps - but they wanted gregory peck or henry fonda or spencer tracey for husbands…
So when it comes to religious art ? sure there may be a sheen of homoeroticism but if the art is good and symbolises deep truths and realities it will vanquish any of those inane peripheral perceptions - they will vanish like the morning mist in the heat of the sun…
In this secularist globalised ‘faster than light’ cyber-culture where the relativist and pragmatist hold their sway - to say we are shallow would be an understatement - but sometimes we surprise ourselves with our maturity - and when it comes to real appreciation of beauty I think evolution has still got a lot of us in its clutches and hasn’t been compltely subsumed by capitalist situationism and utilitarianism - yet !
I can fall in love with the women in whistler paintings - whose inent femininity shines through - women still go for the strong silent type not afraid of their emotions.
there’s still hope for us yet - I don’t think we’re all going to revert to an homogenised asexual/bisexual morass of relativists in the next few generations at least - and after we’ve endured a few more years of this oversexualisation of the male form ; we may swing round full circle and the media/culture may enforce new stereotypes to emulate or appreciate ; as it has tried to do for many years but unsuccessfully - the male identity has been significantly compromised [especially with the structure of society the way it is now] give it time and we may have a little lull where aodicum of sanity may return to the fold and we as a whole may be able to appreciate beauty for what it is - not what it subvertively implies on differing allusional levels…