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Italy Covers Nude Statues to Avoid Offending Iran
Photo of Rome’s Capitoline Museum via Agenzia Anza.
As dusk approached on the eve of the First World War, British Foreign Secretary Sir Edward Grey looked out his window and said, “The lamps are going out all over Europe, we shall not see them lit again in our lifetime.” Not only were millions killed and maimed in that brutal conflict, many of Europe’s great architectural and artistic treasures were damaged and destroyed.
Today, Europe’s leaders aren’t preparing to declare war on each other; they’re preemptively waving white flags to any dark-age potentate who glances their way. Well, not flags exactly, rather white panels:
Italian officials keen to spare the Iranian president, Hassan Rouhani, any possible offence on his visit to Rome covered up nude statues at the city’s Capitoline Museum, where Rouhani met Matteo Renzi, the Italian prime minister.
Photographs of Monday’s visit show both men standing near a grand equestrian statue of Marcus Aurelius, the Roman emperor. Nude statues in the vicinity were covered by large white panels.
A spokesman for Renzi did not immediately return a request for comment. A spokesman for the city of Rome, which manages the museum, said any decision regarding the ceremony with Rouhani and display of artwork had been made by the prime minister’s office.
The decision to cover the artwork was seen as a sign of respect for the Iranian president, according to the Italian news agency Ansa. Not everyone agreed.
“Respect for other cultures cannot and must not mean negating our own,” said Luca Squeri, a lawmaker in Silvio Berlusconi’s centre-right Forza Italia party. “This isn’t respect, it’s cancelling out differences and it’s a kind of surrender.”
If Renzi wanted to properly defer to the intolerant mullahs of Tehran, he should have covered the statues with full-length black chadors, stoned Cupid and Psyche for their sculptural affair, and tossed the Dying Gaul off a roof for homoerotic overtones.
What say you, Ricochetti — when does a decision like this move from a diplomatic nicety to cultural self-negation?
Published in Culture, Foreign Policy
Looks like a snake to me. But strangely alluring, now that you mention it…
On a segue: when I was in Istanbul I remember seeing covered school girls sketching the statues at the museum of antiquities – presumably that was the closest that Istanbul (or their school?) was comfortable with getting to them drawing nekkid people.
“Respect for other cultures” GOES. BOTH. WAYS.
Rouhani’s about ten minutes away from me right now. At least the French had the pride to tell him that he would have to wait to meet them until after lunch, because no way in hell would they consider having lunch without wine. (They said they’d be willing to consider breakfast without it, perhaps. The Iranians protested that breakfast was “too cheap” for Rouhani. The French said, “That’s a shame. We’ll schedule you in for coffee in the afternoon.”)
Do not — and I am serious, do not — click on this link if you’re at work or offended by depictions of graphic and highly unusual sexual acts. But this is Ottoman-era art, and there’s a lot more of it where it came from. Anyone who tells you that it’s “traditional” for Muslims to be offended by this stuff is out of his mind. Islamist puritanism about depicting nudity ain’t traditional. It’s a completely modern invention — and very obviously, a lie.
Indeed.
There may be other reasons for covering works by Jeff Koons. Reasons, such as, he’s kitschy, uninteresting, and tasteless. [WARNING for last link: NSFW]
Italy’s artistic patrimony is arguably unequaled. Jeff Koons is a hack.
Claire,
I never thought I’d enjoy French cultural arrogance, however.
Vive la France!
Buy him a coffee and a danish at the Paris McDonalds.
Regards,
Jim
Yes, let’s.
And the Iranians are the ones who created Isfahan etc. so….oh wait, it was for some guy from Abu Dhabi….