Page 31 - Contemporary Art and Old Masters

NUDES CENSORED
In the nineteenth century, the traditional concept of the The juries of the National Exhibitions had the power to veto
female nude, historically associated with the exaltation of works whose subjects were deemed to contravene moral
ideal beauty, started to be called into question, and new precept. In 1906, four pictures, in spite of their artistic
reflections arose on the codes and limits that should govern merit, were considered unworthy to “appear in a public
both representation and perception of a genre that had competition”. One of them was The Satyr by Antonio Fillol,
no male equivalent. Although the Academy continued to a social painting whose subject matter, in the opinion of the
demand that artists insert nudes in canonical historical or jury, went beyond the bounds of the admissible.
literary narratives that would act as their justification, the In those same years, various sociological studies analysed
subjects chosen mainly sublimated the fantasies and drives aspects of delinquency and the underworld in cities. At the
of men, masking them beneath moralising pretexts that same time, representations of prostitutes had a heyday
counterposed chastity to lust or, as in the case of slave among modernist artists, and even a painter like López
girls and odalisques, locating the scenes in remote and Mezquita, who had personally supported the academic
exotic oriental settings. Various fin de siècle artists centred rejection of indecorous subjects, depicted the interior of a
their gaze on the artistic pose, sometimes using girls in Madrid brothel. As they proliferated in public exhibitions,
the transition to adulthood. A more abundant iconography, these audacious and uncomfortable subjects started to
however, showed models obliged by financial difficulties make viewers aware of the contradictions of a society based
to pose nude in the painters’ ateliers. The modesty and on hypocrisy and false appearances. Censorship, though not
demureness with which they are depicted contrasts with free of controversy, meanwhile pursued various subjects
the overt display of other feminine bodies, whether lying in that dealt with the rights and freedoms of women, excluding
extreme foreshortening for the delight of the male gaze or them from the official circuits. These topics were seen as
fragmented and stripped of identity. a threat to decency and decorum, and it was preferred to
relegate such thorny issues to the private sphere.
The Satyr
Antonio Fillol Granell (1870-1930), Oil on canvas, 1906, Collection of the
Fillol family. Photo © Museo Nacional del Prado

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