Viewed with the eyes of a moral watchdog, every type of art and literature would have to be abolished. If spirit and mind are the essence of humanity, then all those placing the mind and spirit in a position opposed to sensuality are hypocrites. On the contrary, sexuality experiences its true human form only after developing into eroticism and art – some translate eroticism as the art of love. Matters excluded from the civilising process assert themselves by demanding a medium that is spiritually determined, and that is art. It is in art that sexuality reaches its fullest bloom, which seems to negate all that is sensual in the shape of erotic art.
Pornography is a judgmental term used by those who remain closed to eroticism, and whose sensuality perhaps never had the opportunity to be cultivated. These culturally underprivileged people – among them possibly so-called art experts and prosecuting attorneys – perceive sexuality as a threat even when it occurs in an aesthetically-tempered format. Even the observation that a work has offended or violated the viewpoints of many does not make it pornographic. Art is dangerous! Works of art can offend and injure the feelings of others, and do not always make viewers happy. After all, is it not the duty of art to provoke a reaction and shake things up? The term pornography is no longer in-keeping with the times. Artistic depictions of sexual activities, whether they annoy or please, are part of erotic art. If not, they are insipid, dumb works.
Eastern societies, in particular, have known how to integrate the sexual and erotic into their art and culture. Chinese religion, for example, which is entirely free of Western notions of sin, considers lust and love as pure. The union of man and woman under the sign of Tao expresses the same harmony as the alternation of day and night, winter and summer. One can say – and rightly so – that the ancient forms of Chinese thought have their origins in sexual conceptions. Yin and yang, two complementary ideas, determine the universe. In this way, the erotic philosophy of the ancient Chinese also encompasses a cosmology. Sexuality is an integrated component of a philosophy of life and cannot be separated from it. One of the oldest and most stimulating civilisations on earth thus assures us through its religion that sex is good, and instructs us, for religious reasons, to carry out the act of love creatively and passionately. This lack of inhibition in sexual matters is mirrored in Chinese art.
Similarly, the great japanese masters created a wealth of erotic pictures, which rank equal with the nation’s other works of art. No measure of state censorship was ever able to completely suppress the production of these images. Shungas (Images of Spring) depict the pleasures and entertainment of an earthly world. It was considered natural to seek out the pleasures of the flesh, whatever form they took. The word “vice” was unspoken in ancient Japan, and sodomy was a sexual pleasure like any other.
In India, eroticism is sanctified in Hindu temples. In Ancient Greece, it culminated in the cult of beauty, joining the pleasures of the body with those of the mind. Greek philosophy understood the world as an interplay between Apollo and Dionysus, between reason and ecstasy.
Only Christianity began to view eroticism in the context of sin and darkness, so creating irreconcilable differences. “The Devil Eros has become more interesting to man than all the angels and all the saints,” maintained Nietzsche, a tenet that would probably find no sympathy in Japan – Eros was never demonised there. In fact, what Nietzsche lamented in the West never occurred in Japan, nor in many other Eastern cultures. “Christianity”, in Nietzschean words, “forced Eros to drink poison”.
In Western Europe, erotic depictions were banished to secret galleries. The floating, transitory world was held in chains, and only with great difficulty was science able to free sexuality from prejudices and the association with sin. It is therefore no wonder that sexology developed wherever the relationship between sexuality and eroticism was especially ambivalent or troubled. Our cornucopia of a colourful, erotic world of images and objects shows that Eros can be an all-encompassing and unifying energy. These items provide an opportunity to steal a glimpse of an essential, human sphere – usually taboo – through the eyes of artists with a continuously changing point of view.
Unlike pornography, which often lacks imagination, erotic art allows us to partake in creative joy. Even if some of the pictures seem strange to us, or force us to confront taboos, we should still open ourselves to that experience. Real art has always caused offence. Only through a willingness to be affronted can this journey through the geography of pleasure be profitable, in the sense that it enriches our innermost selves. The humour evident in many works of erotic art is only accessible to those who can feel positive about claiming the erotic experience.
This book invites you to take a special journey, one that will open up a vista of pleasures and desires. An abundance of images and objects from art, as well as from religion, presents eroticism and sexuality as the universal, fundamental subject. By opening ourselves to its origins in a variety of cultures, some of them strange, we may enrich our own as well. The many and varied points of view encountered in these works demonstrate the multifarious aspects of sexuality, and reveal that nothing is more natural than sexual desire; yet paradoxically, nothing is less natural than the forms in which this desire expresses itself or finds satisfaction.
Items long hidden in the vaults of public museums and galleries of private collectors can be seen in this book. Many of these pictures and objects were forbidden in a Western society that was less open to sexuality and anything associated with it. Hence they grant us a rare and, therefore, fascinating glimpse of what is part and parcel of human nature. Pictures of the pleasures of the flesh contained here promise a feast for the eyes, albeit a distanced pleasure. Yet, is not the essence of eroticism that it should be just beyond reach?
The cultural history of humankind can extend the limits of tolerance by helping to expand the viewer’s opinion. It can also liberate minds from the clichés that may occupy our fantasies and imagination. Reading this book will hopefully achieve both these ends.
Prehistory and Antiquity
1. Anonymous, Venus, c. 29,000–25,000 BCE.
Palaeolithic. Dolní Vistonics, (Czech Republic). Burnt clay, 11.1 × 4.3 cm. Private collection.
Among the earliest evidence of the existence of mankind are small Palaeolithic sculptures of women, such as the Venus of Laussel (fig. 6). As a symbol of fertility, the subject of Venus favoured stylised interpretations. However, we know almost nothing about the conditions of creation and use of these sculptures. Similar figures were found at a later date in the Minoan civilisation. The Minoans practised a religion that is also evidenced in statues, such as that of the serpent goddess (fig. 9). Though the proportions are more naturalistic, her feminine attributes are nonetheless underlined. However, its function and true identity, as a goddess or priestess, are still uncertain.
Greek civilisation laid the essential foundations of the modern world. The ancient Greeks developed a cult of the body, especially the male body, and admiration for its athletic prowess is reflected in many idealistic depictions of young male nudes. During the Archaic period, the Kouroi (fig. 16, 18) decorated the graves of young warriors. The Doryphoros (fig. 36), from the hands of Polyclitus, shows the evolution of these figures into a purely aesthetic expression, based on a set of ideal proportions rather than on those of a live model. Decorated ceramics were the principal painted art form of this period, and provide an inexhaustible source of information and numerous erotic subjects. The Greeks practised a form of institutionalised homosexuality in which a grown man became “mentor” of a young boy. However, this patriarchal society had little room