Before you even read my post, the article here deserves primary interest. I owe all credit to the geniuses at BigThink.com for relating Rep. Anthony Weiner's recent public debacle to an art historical precedent.As Bob Duggan says in his BigThink post, Congressman Weiner's misguided digital communiqués pick up upon a tradition that has been prevalent in visual media essentially since the dawn of time when men decided that they ran the world (though we'll leave the specifics of that debate up for discussion). In short, men have always believed that bigger is better - and you better make it known who's the cock of the walk, so to speak. Duggan cites the infamously challenged progenitor King Henry VIII's portrait by Hans Holbien the Younger. The King here was trying to prove visually, before he had proved physically, that he had the might to produce a male heir. Duggan also goes on to smartly note that phallic symbols not only connote material power, but spiritual right as well with Leo Steinberg's thesis that "many images of Jesus Christ as an infant emphasized his genitalia." Thus the purely visceral concept of human sexuality and passion transcends into the religious realm of divine authority manifest in, of all things, a penis.
So where does this art history put us in regards to the contemporary world? Well, far from the divine rights of kings I'd say. I understand and very much enjoy Duggan's perspective on the male desire to visually prove to us what apparently eludes verbal description. But it's also important to note that Anthony Weiner was not, in any way, deliberately tapping into this art historical tra
dition. For one thing, his tweets or e-mails were intended for private communication, and even so the accompanying text with the images were of a nature decidedly less high-brow than the potentially lush spiritual metaphors of a gift bestowed from God. The argument remains, however, that for centuries even before written history (see inset of the erect bird-man from the Lascaux cave paintings circa 15,000 BCE), men and their phalluses have had the insatiable urge to demonstrate visual virility to an audience with or without our pre-approved consent.Perhaps we should all just bite the bullet and, ahem, head-off (apologies) the inevitable sex scandals a la Weiner and Schwarzenegger by allowing powerful men to display at the forefront of their public persona their magnificent, proud arsenals in the way of King Henry VIII. On the other hand, I may just prefer to swallow that bullet instead.
Source: http://bigthink.com/ideas/38836
Though I understand where both the original author and Amy A. are coming from, I have a hard time placing the idea of "bigger is better" within the context of the art historical record. If you look at art throughout history, and most notably that of the classical Roman and Greek age, men were most commonly shown with a rather poor display of phallic appendages. Though you can argue that, yes, the presence of the phallus at all should deem a male portrait as unquestionably manly and "superior" to its female counterpart, it is actually very likely that the ancient Greek and Roman men were depicted with small penises in an attempt to visually convey that they were not controlled by their sexual desires. In many male sculptures, even the "Canon of Proportions," also known as the Doryphoros by Polykleitos, the focus of the man, though nude, is remarkably not associated with his genitalia at all. I obviously can't argue that ancient statuary is the only form of art worth discussing, but as much of western art is based on the canon set by our Mediterranean ancestors, I think we should take their views of displaying the male sex organ into consideration for comparative purposes.
ReplyDeleteI suppose it would be more accurate to say that prominence is key, rather than bigger is better. Amy's right on that not all art history, especially ancient art preferred a smaller aesthetic. In biblical lore, it's an insult to say someone has a large penis. (Ezekiel 23:20) In any event, even in the Doryphoros, even if the penis is not necessarily a focus due it's size, it's presence is significant to the art.
ReplyDelete