Nudes in Michelangelo's The Last Judgment were covered up after they were found to contravene a ban on "lasciviousness" in art (Credit: Getty Images)
In retrospect, Michelangelo's fresco got off rather lightly. Not long after Volterra began preserving the modesty of figures in The Last Judgment with strategically positioned drapery, Protestant iconoclasts swept through the Low Countries in 1566 and attacked Antwerp's cathedral, permanently mutilating a grand altarpiece by Frans Floris, the city's leading artist. Floris's fantastical Fall of the Rebel Angels, painted just 12 years earlier, depicts a saint casting out a swarm of grotesque demons. Reformers, convinced that the triptych's imagery violated new civic laws against superstition and idolatry, ripped the wings from the work's hinges and destroyed its two side panels. Only the central section of the triptych, relatively free of the offending iconography, survived the demolition. When Catholic rule returned 20 years later, the salvaged fragment was rehung in the cathedral, a symbol of art's remarkable resilience.
A powerful erasure
Not every work punished for its alleged violation of law has suffered irreparable damage. In 1815, Francisco de Goya's famous pair of paintings depicting the same reclining woman in mirroring poses – one nude, the other clothed – was seized by the Inquisition and sequestered for decades, though neither was ultimately damaged nor destroyed. The works, known as The Two Majas, were painted between 1797 and 1800 and are revolutionary in their sensual portrayal of a contemporary woman gazing directly at the viewer, unconnected to any myth or narrative from history or religion.
Getty Images Goya's famous pair of paintings showing the same woman – one nude, the other clothed – was seized and sequestered for decades (Credit: Getty Images)Getty Images
Goya's famous pair of paintings showing the same woman – one nude, the other clothed – was seized and sequestered for decades (Credit: Getty Images)
After the works' owner, the Spanish Prime Minister Manuel Godoy (who kept the canvases in a cabinet with other nude paintings), was overthrown in 1808, an investigation was opened into his possession of the scandalous portraits, which were accused of breaking laws of decency and public morality. Goya was summoned to explain himself, though the record of his defence has not survived. While Goya, who held a high position as court painter, does not seem to have been punished, his works were confiscated and kept from public view until 1836 and eventually transferred to the Prado Museum in 1901.
The same soft landing for both the artist and artwork would not be enjoyed by every work accused of breaking the law in the 19th Century. While Goya's La maja desnuda and La maja vestida were awaiting their eventual pardon and release, an incendiary lithograph by the French artist Honoré Daumier was just beginning to come under intense scrutiny for inciting "hatred of the King" in violation of the law. Daumier's work, Gargantua, published in the satirical journal La Caricature, was based on a character by Rabelais, and portrays King Louis-Philippe as a gluttonous giant who ravenously consumes the wealth and resources of his poor subjects. Enraged, the French government swiftly went after both the artist and the artwork, which had proved devastatingly popular.
Alamy Daumier's Gargantua portrays King Louis-Philippe as a gluttonous giant – the artist was arrested and sentenced to prison (Credit: Alamy)Alamy
Daumier's Gargantua portrays King Louis-Philippe as a gluttonous giant – the artist was arrested and sentenced to prison (Credit: Alamy)
Daumier was arrested and sentenced to prison for six months for violating anti-sedition laws and the very stone from which the lithograph had been pulled was destroyed, preventing further distribution of the offending image. Though the government did its best to suppress Daumier's Gargantua, copies from the first run of La Caricature survived and cheap woodcuts fashioned from the design kept the image in secret circulation.
Whether Banksy, whoever he is, will, like Daumier, be pursued by the UK government for his role in the alleged act of criminal damage to the premises of the Royal Courts of Justice, or if his controversial mural will find itself, through its partial erasure, more indelibly inscribed in cultural consciousness, remains to be seen. Sometimes what isn't there is more enduring and more powerful than what is.
Nudes in Michelangelo's The Last Judgment were covered up after they were found to contravene a ban on "lasciviousness" in art (Credit: Getty Images)
In retrospect, Michelangelo's fresco got off rather lightly. Not long after Volterra began preserving the modesty of figures in The Last Judgment with strategically positioned drapery, Protestant iconoclasts swept through the Low Countries in 1566 and attacked Antwerp's cathedral, permanently mutilating a grand altarpiece by Frans Floris, the city's leading artist. Floris's fantastical Fall of the Rebel Angels, painted just 12 years earlier, depicts a saint casting out a swarm of grotesque demons. Reformers, convinced that the triptych's imagery violated new civic laws against superstition and idolatry, ripped the wings from the work's hinges and destroyed its two side panels. Only the central section of the triptych, relatively free of the offending iconography, survived the demolition. When Catholic rule returned 20 years later, the salvaged fragment was rehung in the cathedral, a symbol of art's remarkable resilience.
A powerful erasure
Not every work punished for its alleged violation of law has suffered irreparable damage. In 1815, Francisco de Goya's famous pair of paintings depicting the same reclining woman in mirroring poses – one nude, the other clothed – was seized by the Inquisition and sequestered for decades, though neither was ultimately damaged nor destroyed. The works, known as The Two Majas, were painted between 1797 and 1800 and are revolutionary in their sensual portrayal of a contemporary woman gazing directly at the viewer, unconnected to any myth or narrative from history or religion.
Getty Images Goya's famous pair of paintings showing the same woman – one nude, the other clothed – was seized and sequestered for decades (Credit: Getty Images)Getty Images
Goya's famous pair of paintings showing the same woman – one nude, the other clothed – was seized and sequestered for decades (Credit: Getty Images)
After the works' owner, the Spanish Prime Minister Manuel Godoy (who kept the canvases in a cabinet with other nude paintings), was overthrown in 1808, an investigation was opened into his possession of the scandalous portraits, which were accused of breaking laws of decency and public morality. Goya was summoned to explain himself, though the record of his defence has not survived. While Goya, who held a high position as court painter, does not seem to have been punished, his works were confiscated and kept from public view until 1836 and eventually transferred to the Prado Museum in 1901.
The same soft landing for both the artist and artwork would not be enjoyed by every work accused of breaking the law in the 19th Century. While Goya's La maja desnuda and La maja vestida were awaiting their eventual pardon and release, an incendiary lithograph by the French artist Honoré Daumier was just beginning to come under intense scrutiny for inciting "hatred of the King" in violation of the law. Daumier's work, Gargantua, published in the satirical journal La Caricature, was based on a character by Rabelais, and portrays King Louis-Philippe as a gluttonous giant who ravenously consumes the wealth and resources of his poor subjects. Enraged, the French government swiftly went after both the artist and the artwork, which had proved devastatingly popular.
Alamy Daumier's Gargantua portrays King Louis-Philippe as a gluttonous giant – the artist was arrested and sentenced to prison (Credit: Alamy)Alamy
Daumier's Gargantua portrays King Louis-Philippe as a gluttonous giant – the artist was arrested and sentenced to prison (Credit: Alamy)
Daumier was arrested and sentenced to prison for six months for violating anti-sedition laws and the very stone from which the lithograph had been pulled was destroyed, preventing further distribution of the offending image. Though the government did its best to suppress Daumier's Gargantua, copies from the first run of La Caricature survived and cheap woodcuts fashioned from the design kept the image in secret circulation.
Whether Banksy, whoever he is, will, like Daumier, be pursued by the UK government for his role in the alleged act of criminal damage to the premises of the Royal Courts of Justice, or if his controversial mural will find itself, through its partial erasure, more indelibly inscribed in cultural consciousness, remains to be seen. Sometimes what isn't there is more enduring and more powerful than what is.
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