CHRISTIAN TRAVELERS GUIDES

A CHRISTIAN PERSPECTIVE ON NUDITY IN EUROPEAN ART
© Copyright Irving Hexham 2000

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When Professor Hans Rookmaaker wrote his Modern Art and the Death of a Culture (1967) he demonstrated the truth of his argument through illustrations of famous European paintings of nude figures. This was too much for the editors at InterVarsity Press who insisted that he change his illustrations to meet the sensibilities of its Christian readership. Rookmaaker complied, but he always regretted that the editors lacked the courage to publish his book in its original form because he argued the way in which nudes are portrayed in painting tells us far more about the basic beliefs of the painter and his or her society than anything else.

Of course the editors at British InterVarsity who made the decision to change Rookmaaker's book knew their market and were reflecting the real concerns of potential readers. The curators of secular art galleries on the other hand have no such scruples. Consequently, anyone who visits a major art display in Europe or North America is bound to see a large number of paintings containing nude figures which frankly embarrass many Christians, particularly evangelical North American Evangelical Christians. Therefore, anyone who encourages Christians to visit art galleries and take seriously the cultural heritage of Europe needs to warn people that when the visit an art gallery they are bound to see nude paintings and explain why such paintings are not what they seem to modern viewers.

Probably the best example to help Christians understand the importance of paintings portraying nudes is the oft repeated work The Rape of Lucricia. To the modern viewer this is simply a picture of a nude, or seminude, woman holding a knife to her breast that really makes very little sense. Therefore, it is important to ask why so many Christian painters, like Martin Luther's friend Lucas Cranach the Elder, painted this classic picture. The answer lies in both pre-modern attitudes to nudity and the story of the painting itself.

Anyone who has visited a historic site like Yorkville in the USA knows that before the mid-19^th century it was usual for travelers of both sexes to sleep in one common bed in Inns and other resting places not to mention using common toilets where people often sat on benches besides one another. Today such a lack of privacy is unthinkable in the West and most modern countries. But, as anyone who has lived in an African or Asian village knows such things are not uncommon even today once one leaves the confines of modern civilization. What this means is that our ancestors and many people in other parts of the world even today lived with nudity as a normal part of life.

Here it is important to be very careful and point out that just because people may sleep in the same bed or see others in various stages of undress does not mean, as most modern people think, that all modesty is lacking. What it means is that chastity and virtue are often understood differently in pre-modern and rural cultures. Thus while it is normal for children to run around naked in many parts of Africa and Asia, and for women to breast-feed their children in public, it does not follow that the people who accept such things as normal are sexually loose or immoral. Indeed, they may often have higher ethical standards than many moderns who see their behavior as immodest.

The plain fact is that before the nineteenth century and in many parts of the world today ordinary life was or is crowded and by European and North American standards crude but not necessarily immoral. Therefore, when painters painted their contemporaries they reproduced what they saw and that often involved pictures of people bathing, breast-feeding children, and similar scenes.

This is why the Rape of Lucricia is such an important painting in terms of helping us understand the attitude to people like Cranach and Luther to nudity. The story of Lucricia is a simple one. She was a virtuous Roman women who was savagely raped by the Roman King who considered it his right to take any woman he wanted. After her rape Lucricia shocked the leading families of Rome by appearing naked in the center of the city crying out that she had been wronged and demanding justice. After this she committed suicide in full view of everyone.

Her heroic act in preferring death to dishonor led tot he overthrow of the Roman monarchy and the establishment of a Republic. Therefore, when men like Cranach painted this epic tale they were making a bold political and social statement which was understood by every educated person. Lucricia like Luther chose truth and honor over pretense and servitude. Like Luther she was prepared to die for her beliefs and what she believed God required of her. Thus the painting reminded the viewer that there are some things in life worth more than life itself. Hence the popularity of the theme with painters, particularly Protestants who were facing the possibility of martyrdom for their faith.

All the other great classical themes containing nudes are based on similar premises. Behind them are stories about virtue, or deceit, that are intended to remind the viewer that life is more than eating and drinking and can only be lived to the full if it is based on ethical values and the deep convictions that ultimately find fulfillment in Christ. This is why so many great Christian artists of the past painted the nudes that appear in today's art galleries.

Yet today Christians who visit European art galleries are often embarrassed when they visit art galleries like the National Gallery, in London, or the Alte Pinakothek in München (Munich), where they seen beautiful paintings of nativity scenes where Mary is breast-feeding the baby Jesus. To many people such scenes are almost blasphemous and certainly obscene. It comes as a real shock when some Christians discover that many of he pictures they are inclined to dismiss as "pornographic" were painted by such outstanding Christian artists as the Cranach's, Albert Dürer, and Rembrandt. Therefore, it is necessary to think about such art in a theological context.

The truth is many Christians are far more comfortable looking at highly stylized Eastern Orthodox Icons which are the product of an otherworldly spirituality than the art of the Reformation. The following examples of Byzantine art illustrate this fact:

Although some people may feel that Byzantine paintings are too otherworldly none will be embarrassed by their lack of realism in the way they portray a mother and child. So now take a look at the following pictures by Reformation artists:

In the above paintings Mary is seen holding the baby Jesus as any earthly mother would hold a child. The theological impulse behind such paintings is to bring Christianity alive in the lives of the onlooker by identifying spiritual events with daily life. Even the clothing worn reflects the times not because the artists knew no better, some did, but because they sought to identify the saving events of the Gospel with their own experiences. Further, and perhaps even more important is the fact that Reformation artists sought to express the full truth of the Gospel that Jesus was both fully man and fully God. No one can doubt the sacred nature of Byzantine art. Nor, are they left in any doubt that the child they see is divine. Where doubts arise is whether or not the events portrayed belong to this world and whether the child actually human. By portraying the baby Jesus as a human baby with a human mother Reformation artists sought to overcome the tendency towards making Jesus a god who is not truly human. Therefore, it followed naturally that they also showed his mother feeding him as baby. Consequently, they kept expressions of his divinity either to other elements in their pictures or to other paintings showing his resurrection. Thus the theological point behind the depiction of breast feeding is a strong assertion of the orthodox theological teaching that Jesus was "very God" and "very man."