Michelangelo and Censorship
Michelangelo, a renowned figure in the art world, is celebrated for his sculptures and paintings, particularly the statue of David and the fresco The Last Judgment. However, his work has faced significant censorship throughout history. In both the sixteenth and twentieth centuries, Michelangelo's depictions of the nude form were deemed obscene by various authorities and segments of society, reflecting a complex interplay between artistic expression and societal values.
During the Renaissance, while elite patrons embraced nudity as a celebration of the human spirit influenced by classical ideals, the general public often reacted with outrage, leading to attempts to modify or cover his works. The changing moral landscape, particularly influenced by the Reformation and the Council of Trent, further fueled these tensions, culminating in the overpainting of nude figures in The Last Judgment.
In modern times, Michelangelo’s works have continued to provoke controversy, with instances of censorship occurring in places like the United States and Australia. These incidents demonstrate that even the masterpieces of such a revered artist can be subject to societal scrutiny and censorship, highlighting the ongoing dialogue between art, morality, and cultural perceptions.
Michelangelo and Censorship
Identification: Italian sculptor, painter, and poet
Significance: Although Michelangelo was one of the greatest artists of the Italian Renaissance, his works have frequently been censored as obscene
Michelangelo, widely regarded as one of the greatest sculptors and painters of all time, has nevertheless been subject to censorship. Although his works are regarded as examples of what lifts the fine arts above the prurient and humdrum interests of the everyday, Michelangelo’s major works—in particular, the David statue and The Last Judgment mural in the Sistine Chapel— were attacked as obscene in both the sixteenth and the twentieth centuries. Most scholars dismiss such episodes without comment, while others treat them as attempts by prudish minds to stifle creative genius. Michelangelo’s exalted status, however, illuminates the complex relationship between censorship and the changing mores of society.
Michelangelo’s Life
Michelangelo’s life presents perhaps for the first time, the notion of the “modern” artist, the creative individual constrained neither by the traditions and rules of art nor by social and legal restrictions that apply to others.
Born near Florence, Michelangelo became an artist over the objections of his family. At about fourteen, he was apprenticed to a Florentine painter, but after a brief period, he left that workshop to continue his education in the household of Lorenzo de’ Medici. Influenced by the Neoplatonic philosophy of the Renaissance, the young artist was also affected by the austere views of the Dominican preacher, Girolamo Savonarola. By 1500 Michelangelo was producing commissions in both Florence and Rome. His patrons included the city of Florence (for which he produced the David), the Medici family, and the Vatican. For Pope Julius II, he did the frescoes of the Sistine Chapel ceiling (1508-1512) and numerous tomb statues; for Pope Paul III, his work included the Sistine Chapel’s The Last Judgment (1534-1541) and the frescoes of the Vatican’s Pauline Chapel. In addition to painting, sculpture, and architecture, Michelangelo also composed about two hundred poems during the course of his life that gained recognition throughout Europe.
Early Censorship of His Work
Michelangelo worked for patrons imbued with the classical, Neoplatonic attitudes characteristic of the educated classes of the Italian Renaissance. To these people, the human being was the highest of God’s creations, and nudity suggested the ideal of beauty, as it had during the ancient world. To the common man, however, uneducated in the classics, nudity smacked of the lascivious. While there has been occasional opposition to Michelangelo’s works on theological grounds, his critics have usually objected to his prominent use of the unclothed figure.
In the marble statue David, artist and patrons agreed on the philosophical and political importance of depicting the hero nude. The populace, however, was incensed. As the finished statue was being moved into its position in a Florence city square, people stoned it, breaking it in several places. The statue was made more modest by the addition of gilded leaves covering the figure’s genitals.
Similar but more intense debates surrounded Michelangelo’s frescoes in the Sistine Chapel, especially those of The Last Judgment. In this case, the arguments were not between erudite patrons and an uneducated laity but between two generations of patrons. To Pope Julius II and, to a lesser extent, Pope Paul III, the nudes in these frescoes reflected the classical leanings of the papal court and were seen as a nonsexual celebration of the male spirit. But even while Michelangelo was completing the fresco of The Last Judgment, attitudes about what was appropriate in religious art were changing, largely in response to pressures brought by the Reformation in Germany. The Council of Trent (1545-1563) set specific standards for artists to follow, including the avoidance of all nudity in religious art.
What had been the quintessential representation of the human spirit to one generation was offensive to Roman Catholic morals in the next. In 1540, even before The Last Judgment was completed, it was criticized by papal officials. Michelangelo treated these criticisms with disdain, and the pope supported the artist. By 1558, however, Paul IV hired another artist to overpaint the fresco, adding loincloths to many of the naked figures. Pope Paul IV’s successor, Pius V, had further sections repainted, and Clement VIII actually considered having the entire composition destroyed.
Modern Censorship of Michelangelo’s Work
Just as Church leaders of the sixteenth century censured Michelangelo’s works to protect public morals, officials in the following centuries have also occasionally condemned his work. In the twentieth century, there has been scattered opposition worldwide. In the United States, the Tariff Act of 1842 provides for the seizure of pictorial materials of an obscene or sexual nature which are being imported into the country. On several occasions in the 1930’s, it was invoked against importers of postcards and books depicting Michelangelo’s works. In February, 1933, a U.S. customs officer seized books illustrating the frescoes of the Sistine Chapel, calling them obscene. Reported in the newspapers, the case came to the attention of the customs assistant solicitor, and the books were immediately released, with apologizes offered.
The great David statue has also met with opposition in the twentieth century. When Los Angeles’ Forest Lawn cemetery exhibited a replica of the statue in 1939, it did so with fig leaves placed over the genitals. In the 1960’s and 1970’s, when replicas and posters of the David were put on sale without the fig leaves, they were seized by police in Australia, Brazil, and the United States. Such cases indicate that even the works of an artist universally considered among the greatest of all time can be suppressed by authorities following the social mores of the time.
Bibliography
On art and censorship, see Jane Clapp, Art Censorship: A Chronology of Proscribed and Prescribed Art (Metuchen, N.J.: Scarecrow Press, 1972) and John Henry Merryman and Albert E. Elsen, Law, Ethics and the Visual Arts (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1987). On Michelangelo, see Howard Hibbard, Michelangelo (Cambridge: Harper & Row, 1985) and Charles Seymour, Michelangelo’s David: A Search for Identity (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1967). On the developing status of the artist in society, see Arnold Hauser, The Social History of Art, vol. 2, Renaissance, Mannerism, Baroque (New York: Vintage Books, 1957).