This is Michelangelo’s David. Now, when this was completed in 1504, it may have been somewhat controversial, in that it is clearly a somewhat erotic male nude. Michelangelo thought human aesthetic perfection was reached in the male, and not the female form, and this was a common idea throughout much of the history of art. It is has been only relatively recently, within the last century or so, that a greater acceptance of the nude female has arisen.

It is hard not to argue about the eroticism of this statue. If you ever see it in person, and you notice the crowds of females giggling as their eyes wander down the statue’s body, you know there is some kind of eroticism going on.

Very few would consider this porn, today. Few would even consider it an erotic piece. Yet to me, especially when you see the entire statue like this from all sides, there is an erotic element. Any nude has to be, by its very nature, somewhat erotic. Michelangelo enjoyed beauty, and in this statue he is depicting perhaps what is the greatest representation of masculine beauty in sculpture. At 17 feet tall, it is truly impressive when seen in person. It is one of the best examples of the blending of the Classical and pagan past with Biblical themes that are so common in the Renaissance. The statue could not have been created without the rediscovery of the classical past, especially in art, and yet the theme is still born out of the contemporary religious beliefs. Michelangelo was a particular master of this sort of thing.

And yet Michelangelo was never without controversy. To quote Wikepedia: “Censorship always followed Michelangelo, once described as “inventor delle porcherie” (“inventor of obscenities”, in the original Italian language referring to “pork things”). The infamous “fig-leaf campaign” of the Counter-Reformation, aiming to cover all representations of human genitals in paintings and sculptures, started with Michelangelo’s works.”

Nudity makes many people uncomfortable. Now most people I would not care to see naked anyway, but in art, nudity is perfectly acceptable, especially when it is devoted to beauty, as with this statue. And yet today I am sure Michelle Bachman, Tony Perkins, James Dobson and others of such ilk would love to destroy this, as being contrary to “Family Values”, etc. We know for a fact that the Taliban would not hesitate to destroy this, and so we can assume most fundamentalist religious groups would probably feel the same way, Islamic or Christian or otherwise.

This kind of art and the culture that created it are worth fighting for.