so instinctively reaches for the aesthetic, the ornamental (possibly giving the animal kingdom its ornament directly as a bodily creation).” Once, when Picasso, in the evening of his life, was asked about the difference between art and eroticism, his pensive answer was: “But – there is no difference.” Instead, as others warned about eroticism, Picasso warned about the experience of art: “Art is never chaste; one should keep it away from all innocent ignoramuses. People insufficiently prepared for art should never be allowed close to art. Yes, art is dangerous. If it is chaste, it is not art.”
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. It is assumed that their sensuality 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 still does not make it pornographic. Art is dangerous! Works of art can offend and injure the feelings of others; they do not always make viewers happy. After all, is it not the duty of art to annoy and to stir things up? The bottom line: 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, even if harmless.
Eastern societies in particular have known how to integrate the sexual and erotic into their art and culture. Chinese religion, for example, entirely free of western notions of sin, considers lust and love as pure things. 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 art from China.
The great masters of Japan also created a wealth of erotic pictures, which rank equal with Japan’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 a rather earthly world. It was considered natural to seek out the pleasures of the flesh, whichever 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 Greece, it culminates in the cult of beauty, joining the pleasures of the body with those of the mind. Greek philosophy understood the world as interplay between Apollo and Dionysus, between reason and ecstasy.
Only Christianity began to view eroticism in a context of sin and the world of darkness, so creating irreconcilable differences. “The Devil Eros has become more interesting to man than all the angels and all the saints,” a tenet held by Nietzsche, which would probably find no sympathy in Far Eastern Japan: Eros was never demonised there. In fact, that which Nietzsche lamented in the West never did occur 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 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 many 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 even annoy and force us to confront taboos, we still should 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 also be profitable, namely in the sense that this fantasy journey 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 cult present eroticism and sexuality as the universal, fundamental subject. By opening ourselves to the origins in a variety of cultures, some of them strange, we may enrich our own culture as well… The many and varied points of view encountered in this work demonstrate the multifarious aspects of sexuality. It reveals that nothing is more natural than sexual desire; and, 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 which was less open to sexuality and anything associated with it. So they grant us a rare and therefore more fascinating glimpse of what is part and parcel of human nature.
Pictures of the pleasures of the flesh, in this book, promise a feast for the eyes, albeit a distanced pleasure. Yet, is not the essence of eroticism that it should be just beyond reach?
Aspects of the cultural history of humankind can help to extend the limits of tolerance by helping to expand the viewer’s opinion. They can liberate minds from clichés, which may occupy our fantasies and imagination today, but hopefully not after this book has been read.
From Prehistory and Primitive Forms to Antiquity and the Perfection of the Body
1. Anonymous, The Venus of Willendorf, 30,000–25,000 B. C. E. Limestone with red polychromy, h: 11.1 cm. Naturhistorisches Museum, Vienna (Austria).
Art has dealt with sexuality since its prehistoric beginnings. Though their purpose remains obscure, small Palaeolithic sculptures of women make up some of the earliest evidence of human existence, such as the so-called Venus of Laussel, whose stylised body with exaggerated hips and breasts have led to interpretations as a fertility figure and to her being named after the goddess of love. Much later on, the Minoan civilisation of ancient Crete created similar figures including tantalising statuettes such as the Snake Goddess. While more naturalistic than her prehistoric counterpart, the figure’s feminine attributes were still emphasised. Like her predecessors, the Snake Goddess’s function is unknown – even her identity as a goddess is uncertain.
Succeeding the Minoans in the Mediterranean, the Ancient Greeks developed a virtual cult of the body, particularly the male body. Their admiration of athletic prowess was reflected in their many idealised representations of nude young men. In the Archaic period life-size nude marble statues called kouroi marked the graves of youthful warriors. Polykleitos’ later sculpture, Doryphoros, based on his mathematical set of ideal proportions rather than actual bodies, showed the evolution of such figures into purely aesthetic expressions.
Although Ancient writers discussed many famous Greek paintings, no actual works have survived. Decorated ceramics, offering a wealth of erotic subjects and information on the culture