Piggott Arkansas

MeToo! - Censorship and race in the gender identity war.

In all photographs of Clare Gannaway, the senior curator of Manchester Art Gallery, her image is austere and certainly not conforming to traditional images of femininity. Normally the manner of a person's style should be their own choice and not to be questioned, but when she declares that J. W. Waterhouse's famous painting of Hylas and the Nymphs has been taken down, I think it is appropriate to question her own personal presentation. Gannaway is suggesting that the painting may return to the gallery, "but hopefully contextualised quite differently."

She stated: "For me personally, there is a sense of embarrassment that we haven't dealt with it sooner. Our attention has been elsewhere … we've collectively forgotten to look at this space and think about it properly... We want to do something about it now because we have forgotten about it for so long."

"Hylas and the Nymphs," painted in 1896, hung in a room called "The Pursuit of Beauty" and was displayed with other Victorian images of naked or semi clad women. In a recent BBC documentary by Jeremy Paxman called "The Victorians" paintings of this ilk were described as being a form of soft porn. The Guardian - which broke the story - quoted Gannaway as saying the "Pursuit of Beauty" was a bad title. Gannaway, the article continued, thought the tile was bad "as it was male artists pursuing women’s bodies, and paintings that presented the female body as a passive decorative art form or a femme fatale." https://www.theguardian.com/…/manchester-art-gallery-remove…

Surely, the historical context of these paintings would make them worthy of viewing. As a child my mother, who was a teacher, was happy for me to pore through an old book called "The Greek Myths." She was pleased to see me reading this. We left that house when I was eight, so I must have been around seven years of age when I first fell under the spell of the book. The stories, written for adults, were intriguing, but the pictures were the hooks that first drew me in. All in monochrome, they were photographic representations of classic works of art. J. W. Waterhouse's "Hylas and the Nymphs" featured in the book, and I loved it. I still love it, as I love other of his paintings like The Lady of Shalott (1888) which hangs in the Tate. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lady_of_Shalott_(painting) The book also contained George Frederick Watts' "The Minotaur" (1885) which also hangs in the Tate. http://www.tate.org.uk/a…/artworks/watts-the-minotaur-n01634 There were photos of ancient Greek statues and bas-reliefs where stonemasons had made marble look like diaphanous fabric, so Hera's breasts and hips, covered by the cloth held to hide her by her maids, were visible underneath. Another Tate collection painting that seems inspired by Waterhouse appeared in the book - "The Lament for Icarus" by Herbert Draper, displayed in 1898: http://www.tate.org.uk/…/draper-the-lament-for-icarus-n01679

Why should I be focusing so much on the images of that book? Because a child of seven years has only a rudimentary apprehension of the erotic elements of these images. Of course I had an interest in bodies, out of natural curiosity, but it would be several years before real sexual thoughts were in my mind. What beguiled me was not the "porn element" of the images, but their sheer sensuality. Hylas' nymphs are entreating him to come into the water. They are all painted from the same model, the water lily leaves and the reeds break up the water, but the lily leaves also hide a nipple, but are also picked up and clutched to their flesh by individual nymphs. The composition and execution of the painting make it a thing of exquisite beauty. In the hippy era it became a popular poster and greetings card. As a child of seven going on eight, unable to see it in its true colours, I saw its beauty and fell in love with it, and I am still in love with it.

Gannaway dresses her person in clothes that disguise her femininity and she has cropped hair. Her "style" seems deliberately designed to ward off physical interest. She has apparently decided that late Victorian depictions of beauty are only about men perving over women's bodies, and thus imposes her own modern values onto an enduring icon of the past. She misses the point of the work entirely. It is a painting of sensuality, of enticement and allure, but it in no way is it pornographic.

Mark Brown's article in the Guardian is prefaced with the statement: "It is a painting that shows pubescent, naked nymphs tempting a handsome young man to his doom, but is it an erotic Victorian fantasy too far, and one which, in the current climate, is unsuitable and offensive to modern audiences?"

By mentioning the word "pubescent" Brown has cast a new stone at the painting, suggesting the small breasts of the nymphs represent a hint of paedophilia, to suggest that to even think of enjoying the painting there should also be a shudder of shame in the beholder.

I cannot believe the puritanical nonsense that has inspired, and is engendering, the removal of this artwork. Again in the Guardian, the same disbelief is expressed in an opinion piece by Jonathan Jones. But he has little love for the painting. He writes of the manner in which Manchester Art Gallery has removed the painting to start a "conversation": "Hylas and the Nymphs is no masterpiece. Its mildly erotic vision of a Greek myth is very silly, if you ask me, and if we were in front of it now I’d be poking fun. Yet we’d be looking, talking, perhaps arguing. Remove it and the conversation is killed stone dead. Culture falls silent as the grave."
https://www.theguardian.com/…/hylas-and-the-nymphs-jw--wate…

I agree with Jones's shock at the cultural attack that the removal of the painting represents, but not with his derision of the painting. For me, beguiled in childhood by the image, it is a masterpiece, one of many. It is part of its time, but it is more masterful than much of the conceptual dreck that is foisted upon us by self-interested dealers as "art."

And this brings one to the reasoning of the Manchester Art Gallery - Brown's article suggests that the removal of the painting, is of itself "an artistic act." Gannaway herself admits that the removal of this piece was inspired by the MeToo! movement and the Time's Up declaration: https://www.timesupnow.com/

So - the socio-political hysteria that has bubbled over from claims of sexual assault against women has now become part of a gesture of censorship that promotes itself as "art." Where the gallery has removed the painting, there is a notice, and visitors are encouraged to affix Post-it notes to express their views, to turn the act of censorship into a "conversation." And there is an encouragement to Tweet one's opinions using a hashtag: https://twitter.com/hashtag/MAGsoniaboyce

In the comments below, I will post pictures of three of the post-it notes from the exhibition that were displayed on Twitter. One bemoans the loss of "my booby woman picture." Another attacks male sexism and calls for more Sapphic art to replace it.

The binary oppositions of man versus woman, feminist versus male artist, prudery versus sensuousness, that have been made by this action are made more troubling in the manner that this removal of the painting is connected to the art output of a black woman artist. The binaries now involve more than maleness versus femininity - they include racial oppositions and pit late 19th century images of white women against modern black self-image. Admittedly, the objects of pursuit in the Pursuit of Beauty collection are of fleshy females whose skin pigments are of pink and peach, often reflecting lustres of warm light. Waterhouse spared pigments to depict the nymphs who draw Hylas into their dark watery world. The nymphs are pallid and wan, their cheeks are not rosy. Only their lips suggest that blood runs under their skin.

Sonia Boyce, who lectures at Middlesex University and is Professor of Black Art and Design at University of the Arts London, was born in 1962 The Royal Academy of Arts states that her early works "addressed issues of race and gender in the media and everyday life." A Royal Academician since 2016, "Her recent work collaboratively brings the audience into sharper focus as an integral part of the artwork, between artist, vocalists and audience, demonstrating how cultural differences might be articulated, mediated and enjoyed." https://www.royalacademy.org.uk/art-artists/…/sonia-boyce-ra

Yes, the removal of Waterhouse's painting has been an attempt to draw art lovers into the museum's "conversation" but I fear that this is not going to be seen to be an enhancement of her own metier, particularly if curator Clare Gannaway does not return the painting of Hylas and the Nymphs to the public gaze. An artist is someone who challenges, who engages, but an artist of value does not partake in censorship. Above all - an artist does not hide or withdraw the work of other artists, but creates, and adds to an ongoing tradition, and contributes to a discourse.

I do not fear that Sonia Boyce intends to remove Waterhouse's painting from view for anything other than a temporary measure, as part of her intention to provoke dialogue between artist and art lover. But I do fear that the curator, Clare Gannaway, will impose her own gender identity politics, and will withdraw the painting of Hylas and the Nymphs, and other works in the possession of Manchester Art Gallery.

In March, there will be an exhibition in the gallery by Sonia Boyce. If Gannaway uses the "conversation" that is tied in to this exhibition to remove artworks from view, then art goers will unfairly be blaming Boyce. In the art world, great power lies in the hands of dealers (like Charles Saatchi) and curators (like Nicholas Serota) and their power has not always brought good, as they are also supporters of iconoclasm.

When J. M. W. Turner died in 1851, his later works seemed to prefigure the advent of Impressionism. He was immensely popular and his funeral was like a state funeral. Turner bequeathed his works to the nation. In amongst his watercolours and oils, there were an estimated 150 artworks that were deeply personal to Turner, of an erotic nature. Unfortunately for Turner, the person who was to curate this legacy was someone whose name was to become a byword for prudery and sexual inadequacy - John Ruskin.

Ruskin initially supported the pre-Raphaelites, and indeed the work of Waterhouse would be classed as "pre-Raphaelite" even though he was too young (born in 1849) to belong to the original Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood. Ruskin married Euphemia Chalmers Gray (Effie Gray) in 1848. However, Ruskin failed to consummate the marriage. Years later, when she had already met and fallen in love with Ruskin's protegé John Everett Millais, Effie took Ruskin to court to have her marriage annulled. In 1854 the marriage was annulled on the grounds of Ruskin's "incurable impotency." It was reckoned by some that Ruskin could not cope with Effie's pubic hair, led to believe from paintings that women did not have hair down below.

Ruskin was the last person that should have curated Turner's legacy. Instead of wrapping up Turner's erotic works and storing them, he had them all burned. Later, Ruskin showed he was unable to cope with the shock of the new, when he derided Whistler for his painting: "Nocturne in Black and Gold: The Falling Rocket." Ruskin wrote in a pamphlet that Whistler was "throwing a pot of paint in the public's face." Once again Ruskin was back in court, sued by Whistler for libel. https://en.wikipedia.org/…/Nocturne_in_Black_and_Gold_%E2%8…

The problem with Ruskin is that he believed the righteousness of his own beliefs, when in matters of art, what can be considered to be "right" and "good" and "worthy" are all subject to individual taste. Ruskin projected his own outlook upon all that was before him, and tried to destroy that which offended his "higher" sensibilities.

I hope that Clare Gannaway is not similarly afflicted by such self-importance. MeToo! is just a fad. The abuse and exploitation of women has always been wrong, but in the hands of Hollywood "stars" who colluded with such "abuse" to gain parts in films, its condemnations become a shallow exercise in virtue-signalling.

Beauty is always in the eye of the beholder, but in the world of identity politics, statements and gestures are the driving issues, and the beauty takes a back seat. The conversation has been started, and I wish success to Sonia Boyce in her dialogues with the viewers of her artwork. But a charming picture of a young man being seduced by white-skinned water maidens should not be sacrificed on a bonfire of politically correct vanities.

http://www.abc.net.au/…/gallery-removes-nymph-paint…/9381928