Like any other self-respecting conservative artist, I follow The Culturist on X. The account champions truth, beauty, and goodness amidst a materialist society that insists there is no connection linking the three. One of the most lauded works featured is Bernini’s jaw-dropping “Rape of Proserpina,” a work depicting Pluto abducting a nude Proserpina. The Culturist marvels, “A 23 year old sculpted this. What’s your excuse?”
It is a stunning piece, even if it depicts a disturbing amount of nudity and sexual violence. But of course, Bernini gets a free pass because, you know, it’s art. It’s beautiful and depicts truth about tragedy and the human experience, so therefore it is also good.
Many conservatives have bought into this common notion that, while pornography is immoral, nudity in high art is permissible. Often, these arguments tie into the concept that truth, beauty, and goodness are interconnected. Because art conveys truth and beauty, it must also be good, even when it contains nudity.
Or so the narrative goes.
In What is Art?, Leo Tolstoy presents an alternative view. He addresses the common assumptions about nudity in art by questioning the truth, beauty, and goodness framework.
Is Art Good because it is True and Beautiful?
Tolstoy dismantles the Western assumption that truth, beauty, and goodness are inherently interconnected, an idea that stems from ancient Greek philosophy. Why, he asks, do we so willingly accept ideas about morality from the ancient Greeks? As he points out, they were far from a moral people.
Before we accuse Tolstoy of committing the genetic fallacy, it’s worth considering the pitfalls of conflating the three. In The Great Good Thing, Andrew Klavan remarks how humans often confuse symbols with the things they symbolize. For example, we love the actors because of the characters they portray and are tantalized by sex rather than the love it embodies. Likewise, beauty isn’t intrinsically good, but can be a symbol for goodness.
This is important to remember when evaluating art. Too often, we make the mistake of thinking that because an artwork is beautiful, it must therefore be good. Goodness naturally creates beauty, but not all beautiful things are good by default. Beauty can be imitated and used for evil as well as good.
Does Beauty Justify Nudity in Art?
According to Tolstoy, when people say a work of art is beautiful, what they really mean is that it pleases them. Tolstoy was rather cynical about why people are pleased by nudity, condemning even high art for its “lust-arousing descriptions.” Of one acclaimed painting he remarked, “One can see that the artist liked the naked women very much.” He frequently called such art “sensual” and decried “outrageous female nudity.” While many provide justifications for such art, Tolstoy remains unconvinced.
Never does he distinguish art from pornography, criticizing even the ancient Greeks’ celebrated nude sculptures. This makes sense; the assumption that Greek art was innocent is glaringly unfounded. Somehow we forget that the nude sculptures we idolize were created by the same culture that enjoyed lewd theater and thought raping slaves was acceptable.
Tolstoy doesn’t mince words. Of “all those paintings and statues portraying the naked female body,” he claims there is “one definite aim: the widest possible spreading of depravity.” He expresses concern about nude art’s moral influence, writing that it “does not contribute to mankind’s movement forward, but perhaps more than anything else it hinders the realization of the good in our life.”
Perhaps we could learn a thing or two from Tolstoy’s cynicism. While many Christians defend the nudity in “Game of Thrones,” claiming that it achieves lofty artistic purposes, interviews from the director Neil Marshall tell a different story. He claims that while filming, one of the producers told him, “I represent the perv side of the audience, and I’m saying I want full frontal nudity in this scene.” Instead of justifying nudity in film, maybe we should share Tolstoy’s skepticism.
Does Truth Justify Nudity in Art?
Because of Plato’s mimesis theory — the idea that the purpose of art is to imitate life — we are prone to justify art so long as it depicts “reality.” Tolstoy argues against this, stating that realism is not an adequate standard to evaluate art.
When it comes to viewing realistic portrayals, Tolstoy worries about us confusing our base pleasures with enrichment. He describes how impressed audiences were after watching a play depicting a girl writhe and die onstage. Rather than praise the performance’s realistic rendering, he found it unnerving. He found the emotional reaction from the audiences “like [what] we experience in viewing an execution, or what the Romans experienced in their circuses.” He is concerned about us mistaking “the strikingness, the effects of novelty, unexpected contrasts, horrors, [that] affect the nerves” for artistic achievement. In other words, even if the sight of a naked man carrying off a naked young woman depicts truth, Tolstoy still would question the morality of viewing it for aesthetic purposes.
Additionally, Tolstoy notes that the naked body is “precisely what one never sees and what a man occupied with real art hardly ever has to portray.” Even if art’s purpose is to imitate life, it is peculiar how overrepresented nudity is. There is more bare skin in a single art exhibit than most normal people will ever see in a lifetime.
Moving Forward
Though less popular, Tolstoy’s views on nudity in art are more well-founded than his opponents’. Though nude art may not be as objectifying as modern pornography, the differences between the two are still often overstated and depend on trivial differences such as whether the depicted nude is looking directly at the viewer or whether the artist is “making a point.” But oftentimes when people question the morality of nudity in art, “enlightened” circles accuse them of being uncultured or puritanical.
A number of Christian men I’ve known have expressed discomfort at viewing nudity in high art. I don’t think they are prudish simpletons incapable of understanding the arguments distinguishing art from pornography; rather, these are honest men who care about honoring God and womanhood.
I’m not suggesting we take a sledgehammer to Gian Lorenzo Bernini’s masterpieces or erase every living memory of them off the internet. However, as we create art, we need to reevaluate our long-held ideas and assumptions. The fact that celebrated works from the past contain nudity doesn’t justify us including it in our films, literature, and other mediums. It’s time to reassess giving art a free pass just because it’s art.
Meg Marie Johnson graduated with her master’s in English from Brigham Young University. She writes adaptations of classics for children and young adult social satire. You can follow her on X at @MegMarie24601.
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