At The Door Of The Uffizzi, In Florence, One Is Confronted
By Statues Of A Man And A Woman, Noseless,
Battered, black with
accumulated grime - they hardly suggest human beings
- yet these ridiculous creatures have been thoughtfully and
conscientiously fig-
Leaved by this fastidious generation.
You enter, and proceed to that most-visited little
gallery that exists in the world - the Tribune - and there,
against the wall, without obstructing rag or leaf,
you may look your fill upon the foulest, the vilest,
the obscenest picture the world possesses - Titian's Venus.
It isn't that she is naked and stretched out on a bed - no,
it is the attitude of one of her arms and hand. If I
ventured to describe that attitude, there would be a fine
howl - but there the Venus lies, for anybody to gloat
over that wants to - and there she has a right to lie,
for she is a work of art, and Art has its privileges.
I saw young girls stealing furtive glances at her; I saw
young men gaze long and absorbedly at her; I saw aged,
infirm men hang upon her charms with a pathetic interest.
How I should like to describe her - just to see what a holy
indignation I could stir up in the world - just to hear
the unreflecting average man deliver himself about my
grossness and coarseness, and all that. The world says
that no worded description of a moving spectacle is
a hundredth part as moving as the same spectacle seen
with one's own eyes - yet the world is willing to let its
son and its daughter and itself look at Titian's beast,
but won't stand a description of it in words.
Which shows that the world is not as consistent as it
might be.
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