IX - THE NUDE IN ART (1885)

Summary

TO THE EDITOR OF THE PALL MALL GAZETTE

Sir,—I did not see till yesterday the reference made to me in the third page of your yesterday's issue. The passages quoted by your correspondent are not only consistent but, being written in both instances with great care, contain all I should have wished to say on the subject, had not private appeals to me by art students compelled me to point out that the works in question could have attracted no attention but by their impropriety; and seem to have been expressly executed to prove the applicability to the ordinary British artist of the remark made on Bewick in Ariadne Florentina, that “he could paint a pig, but not a Venus.” For the rest, the British public cannot but feel that these pictures have been enough condemned by the tone of the letters and articles written in their defence. The recent phrenzies of dissection and exposure in science and art are, indeed, merely opposite poles of one and the same rage—substituting, in classic thought, for the noble sorrow—non te restituet pieias—the ignoble hope—restituet impietas; and, in Christian thought, for ancient Madonna worship—insult alike to the Matron and the Child.