When you create art, or when you write something, you always risk offending someone somewhere.

There’s nothing you can do as an artist to avoid someone not liking your work. You just keep working and let the work speak for, and defend, you.

The danger comes when outsiders press censorship of the work — as you can see below when clothes were painted on Goya’s “Nude Maja.” 

  Local censors rubbed out Michelangelo’s depiction of Christ’s penis: 

Michelangelo’s naked, cross-carrying Christ, also had his penis covered up in the name of transitory morality over the righteousness of the eternal human form.

Who can forget Andres Serrano’s honoring of Jesus Christ on the Cross in — “Piss Christ” — where the Lord and Savior was immersed in the artist’s urine in a beaker?  

Instead of seeing the inspiration in “Piss Christ” — that Jesus’ message was strong and unbowed no matter its earthly form — was lost on many minds.  
Serrano teaches us Jesus is untouchable, eternal — and He is able to thrive even in the direst and dirtiest situations.  

Where do we draw the line between morality and art?  Are they intermixed and combined in the heart and mind?

Or is art separate from morality and wishing and condemnation can be cleaved from the human spirit?

2 Comments

  2. David Boles – New York City – David Boles was born in Nebraska and holds an MFA from the Oscar Hammerstein II Center for Theatre Studies at Columbia University in the City of New York. He is an author, dramatist, editor, publisher, and teacher who writes across the live stage, print, radio, television, film, and the web. With more than 50 books in print, David continues to write 2MM words a year and has authored over 25K articles. He is a member of the Dramatists Guild, the Authors Guild, and PEN America, and founded The United Stage advocacy platform on the principle that playwrights have a duty to direct their own work. Read the Prairie Voice Archive at Boles.com | Buy his books at David Boles Books Writing & Publishing at BolesBooks.com | Study with Script Professor at ScriptProfessor.com | Touch American Sign Language mastery at Hardcore ASL at HardcoreASL.com | Explore the Human Meme podcast at HumanMeme.com | Train with Boles Bells at BolesBells.com.
    David W. Boles says:

    There certainly is bad taste in the editing of the original work, Karvain, and that clumsy effort give so much more power and purpose to the original.

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