A brief history of scurrilously irreligious modern art. For religion in general, and Christianity, in particular, has provided some of the most potent fetish images and fantasy scenarios for generations. With its heady mixture of divine retribution, torture, martyrdom and symbolism, The Bible is a rich picking ground for off-kilter mind trips.
If The Bible has provided a feast of sexual fantasy material, then many of those who have sought to capture moments from it in works of art have, either deliberately or subconsciously, emphasised those very images and ideas that fuel sinful thoughts. Many of the artists of the seventeenth and eighteenth century were β often under pain of arrest, torture and execution β closeted homosexuals who used these paintings as an outlet for their own sexual desires.
Most paintings of Christ portray him as a vaguely effeminate figure presumably to emphasise his great beauty ; and the bulk of them feature him nailed on the cross, the crown of thorns sending rivers of blood running down his forehead.
Despite this, he is shown in a serene pose. It is as if he has transcended the pain, and often has what almost appears to be the hint of a smile on his lips. While most people will see this as simply an example of his great forgiveness as he takes on our sins, others imagine it as a magnificent moment of masochism.
Similar images can be found throughout religious art; the other great martyrdom is that of Saint Sebastian , and it is his death that is most often blatantly eroticised. Usually seen near or completely naked, he has that Christ-like acceptance of his fate and that pure beauty, but he also has a muscular body penetrated by phallic arrows. This up-front sexual reinterpretation of the scene is something that few artists have dared try with Christ. There is, in fact, as strong a tradition of suppressing overtly erotic images of Christ as there is of making them.
