Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1890-10-19
THE NUDE ONCE MORE.

MOu1eu III puDiiC'
THE NUDE ONCE MORE.
Boston has officially decided that the
drama known as the "Clemenceau Case" is
immoral and indecent, and shall not be
played upon any stage in that city.
1t is not prudery to say that Boston is
right. In ''The Clemenceau Case" the
chief scene is in painters studio, where
woman poses in nudity. The actress
who takes the part clothes herself from
breast to feet in skin-tight fitting flesh
ings In another scene there is too re-
alistic imprisoned love passage.
The defense she makes is before us, in
her own language In brief, it. is that her
aim has been to present the character Of
la Dobrouowska as Dumas conceived it.
La is woman SO Unfortunately vain that
she cannot think of concealing her charms.
She has a beautiful figure, it shall be
given to the admiration of the world by
the brush of her husband, in whose studio
she poses. His passion blinds him to the
fact that this is the resolution Of a wanton,
and that the woman to whom public ad-
miration is necessity is dangerous as a
wife.
Now, says the actress, it is important to
show this woman, la, with her wanton
thirst for universal admiration and her
extravagant passion, and hence the posing
in the studio and the love scene are essen
tials to dramatic art in presenting the
play. eff la is work of art, it is my
business to present her with all possible
fidelity to art. If public taste is wrong in
the matter of drapery should l injure the
quality of my work in recognition of a
false conception of what constitutes pro-
priety?"
The hopeless weakness of this defense is
apparent to the dullest intelligence. at
is important to present the character as
written" says the address. Indeed; why
important !? "But 1 must live" exclaimed
the criminal to the Judge who imposed
punishment upon him. 81 do not see the
necessity for that" replied the magistrate.
off public taste is wrong"-pleads the
actress. But is it wrong when it is decent,
when it pays fair respect to the commonest
prophecies? Is it contributive to the
moral sense, to the modesty of young
women, to the correct taste of young men,
that actresses should pose in nudity, or its
semblance, before public audiences?
The fact is, and all the world knows it,
that the men and women who crowd the
theater when nudity is the attraction, do
so to see an improperly. But, says the
personator of la, the hue and cry about
immortality on the stage springs from the
morbid public itself. Admit it, but does
the presentation of such scenes as the
studio episode tend to stimulate or suppress
morbidity of public taste? Does nudity
in public cultivate chastity, give finer
edge to modesty, make young men and
women better in thought or living; or
does it have contrary effects?
We have no sympathy for the radical
purists, for the people who would clothe
the classic statuary and robe the chiseled
marble of the Greeks But between those
prudes and those who agree with the de-
cision of the Boston authorities there is
an Unreasonable gulf. As has been well
said, it cannot be contended with reason,
that if the nude on the stage is worthy Of
condemnation, so it is to be denounced in
the studio. The error of the syllogism is
in the assumption that the studio is repre-
sentative of passion. On the contrary, the
work of the artist, like that of the surgeon,
is without and above the passions.
The opening of the studio door to the
public gaze is an art ofense; within it
there is not to the students anything more
than an essential study for the augmenting
of skill in their profession.
1t is said that model posing before a
class without a thought of improperly,
has been known to faint upon her pedestal
on discovering peeping Tom gazing
through the skylight. Artists, it is
related, who draw from models by the
hour, without thought of improperly,
will go out into the world and take i'm
minent risks to watch the shadow of a
nude figure upon the closed curtain of an
upper chamber.
So it is that it depends upon conditions
when taste is wrong, and when what may
be inofiensive becomes rank improperly.
The daughter salutes her father, the sister
her brother by union of lips, without con-
scious feeling of wrong, but will sink with
shame and modification if stranger
should offer to embrace her. The posing
of LA upon the stage is intended to crafty
an inaamed taste; the posing of the model
in the studio addresses only the artistic
sense, that has not in it the pulsing of
passion or thought Of evil.
LA on the stage is vulgar, coarse and
wanton, and the defense that the persona
ton of the character is realism and there.
fore artistic, is an insult to intelligence.
Carry the argument out to its logical con-
clusion and for the sake Of the realistic
drama, we should be compelled to rend
the curtain of modesty and expose upon
the stage relations that are clothed with a
holy .secresy, and are as pure and chaste
as the breath of the cherubim.
queen Victoria has saved ss,OO0,OOO in
round numbers.