June 14, 2010
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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| The two statues of Pan, therefore—the one in the cardinal’s collection hidden in Rome and the one hidden away in Naples—were readable as signifying at the same time pure lust and pure intellect, pure art. | The two statues of Pan, therefore—the one in the cardinal’s collection hidden in Rome and the one hidden away in Naples—were readable as signifying at the same time pure lust and pure intellect, pure art. | ||
| - | The wealth of shocking and desirable pornography could hardly go unnoticed among the dealers, and also among forgers hustling their wares to the Grand Tourist collectors converging on Naples. Manufacturing ancient erotica became a lucrative business; Winckelmann himself reported seeing on the market skilful forgeries of Priapic figures from Pompeii in paint and sculpture. One of these forgers of ancient Pompeian erotica, Giuseppe Guerra, a Venetian working in Rome, was particularly renowned. Among his clients was a Borgia family cardinal, whose lavish erotica collection included pieces subsequently purchased by General Joaquim Murat, Napoleon’s brother-in-law, when Murat became king of Naples in 1808. | + | The wealth of shocking and desirable pornography could hardly go unnoticed among the dealers, and also among forgers hustling their wares to the Grand Tourist collectors converging on Naples. Manufacturing ancient erotica became a lucrative business; Winckelmann himself reported seeing on the market skilful forgeries of Priapic figures from Pompeii in paint and sculpture. One of these forgers of ancient Pompeian erotica, [[Giuseppe Guerra]], a Venetian working in Rome, was particularly renowned. Among his clients was a Borgia family cardinal, whose lavish erotica collection included pieces subsequently purchased by General [[Joaquim Murat]], Napoleon’s brother-in-law, when Murat became king of Naples in 1808. |
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| [[Guy de Maupassant]] [[Eiffel Tower]] | [[Guy de Maupassant]] [[Eiffel Tower]] | ||
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Revision as of 12:18, 14 June 2010
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The offensive statue of Pan and the she-goat, found in the long peristyle of the Villa of the Papyrus, which had so shocked King Charles when first excavated in 1752, had long since been locked away. Johann J. Winckelmann, today considered the father of both scientific archaeology and art history, came to Naples and asked to see it, but was resolutely denied access. (Denon had managed to see it, however, and one of his drawings depicts that very white marble sculpture group.)
Like Hamilton, Winckelmann was also curious about the phallic clay lamps and the myriad phalluses in bronze called tintinnabula, whose tiny dangling bells are meant to tinkle away as protection from jinxes and the evil eye. Winckelmann drew copies of several from Herculaneum and mailed them to a friend, G.L. Bianconi.
Winckelmann knew that to understand the Pompeian erotica required analysing what such gods as Pan and Priapus meant in antiquity. In ancient Arcadian legend, it was Pan who taught Daphnis how to play the flute; depicted together that couple therefore symbolized lyric poetry and, in general, artistic creation. The erect penis was meant to indicate intellectual excitement and a portrayal of nature (Pan) bringing culture to mankind.
And what King Charles presumably did not know was that, among the vast treasures of his mother’s inherited Farnese collection in Rome, there was an erotic variation depicting Pan about to make love to Daphnis, the Sicilian shepherd boy. Carved in Greece, the Farnese family marble Pan had been famous for sixteen centuries because Pliny the Elder had described it in his encyclopedia, and had graced the so-called “garden of Love” (giardino d’Amore) at the Cardinal Farnese’s hillside estate in Rome, the Villa Farnesina, until locked away in the Secret Cabinet of the Farnese palace at Campo de’ Fiori in Rome, where it remained until 1770.
The two statues of Pan, therefore—the one in the cardinal’s collection hidden in Rome and the one hidden away in Naples—were readable as signifying at the same time pure lust and pure intellect, pure art.
The wealth of shocking and desirable pornography could hardly go unnoticed among the dealers, and also among forgers hustling their wares to the Grand Tourist collectors converging on Naples. Manufacturing ancient erotica became a lucrative business; Winckelmann himself reported seeing on the market skilful forgeries of Priapic figures from Pompeii in paint and sculpture. One of these forgers of ancient Pompeian erotica, Giuseppe Guerra, a Venetian working in Rome, was particularly renowned. Among his clients was a Borgia family cardinal, whose lavish erotica collection included pieces subsequently purchased by General Joaquim Murat, Napoleon’s brother-in-law, when Murat became king of Naples in 1808.
Guy de Maupassant Eiffel Tower
