Erotic Art

Erotic Art

From time immemorial, Man has celebrated his sexuality through Art: sometimes he has paralleled his sexual and Spiritual joys, resulting in such wonders as India's Khajaraho Temple which, due to its colossal size has survived the dreaded censor and centuries of puritanical hypocrisy.  Most Erotic Art, however, not being on such a grand scale, has been vulnerable to the tyrannical censor, who enjoyed it himself whilst hiding it away from the common man, allowing him to see only what those in power considered suitable as a means to keep him under their strict political or religious thumb. 

In spite of tyrants, however, Artists have continued to create, from the highly erotic Illuminated Manuscripts of medieval monasteries to the great Shunga paintings of Japan, from the miniatures of sixteenth and seventeenth century Rajasthan to the intricate ivories of China, or, in the West, from the hands of Masters as diverse as Rembrandt and Courbet to Beardsley and von Bayros, to name but a few of the countless Artists who have produced the great body of Erotic Art that exists today, but has been hidden until recently. 

In fact, the first thing that would amaze any student about to embark on a study of Erotic Art, is the sheer quantity of what has been produced; then surely he would be further amazed that so many people had worked so hard to keep it more or less unknown.  Even the Artists themselves would keep their more daring works well hidden, in fear for their very lives for having created it.  Happily the censor, the blackhead on the face of Society, is now being slowly but steadily squeezed out, and so one can begin to get a clearer idea of the vastness and true greatness of this genre, especially through publications such as Lyall Stewart's "Erotic Art of the Masters" or the Kronhausen two volume "Erotic Art" or best of all the most extensive Klinger Catalogues, to name but a few in a veritable library of books on Erotic Art now available in most bookstores worldwide. 

Since early on in my youth I had a horror of censorship, never quite able to grasp the concept that one man might think he had the right to tell another what he could or could not look at.  It has been with no little delight that during my lifetime I have watched as, especially in Literature and the Cinema, the critic has been made ever more redundant.  I still feel, however, that the visual arts are not entirely free of prejudice, or a censorial force that prevents the genre of Erotic Art from being recognized as the truly great Art form I believe it to be.  I hope that my work might contribute to the Universal recognition of this wonderful genre which after all is the greatest possible celebration we can have of our very existence, and the love we might find in it.  I hope that I might live to see this genre placed on at least equal footing with all other forms of Art found in the Museums of the world. 

While I would never create a work of Art that was shocking for shocking's sake, neither would I dream of censoring - or expecting anyone else to censor - any inspiration that I might receive.  I paint for many reasons; one of them is to educate, and I hope by the beauty and integrity of my work that I may teach people the difference between pornography and great Art, and shatter the last shackles bonding those imprisoned by ignorance or hypocrisy. 

Few people could be as intimately acquainted with the Old Masters as myself; from the age of three I studied them in books, and then from ten years old I studied them and virtually lived with them for six years in London's National Gallery, where I was given unique a highly privileged permission to study by copying, a fact recorded in just countless national and international newspapers at that time.  On top of all that, I then studied Rubens and Rembrandt for a further seven years, whilst also studying the drawings of Leonardo and Michelangelo concurrently.  The Old Masters are my heritage; I have spent my life painting in what has often been called an "Old Master style."  My respect for them is unswerving, and anyone thinking my work is in the slightest derisive could not be further from the truth.  The greatest of their works gives Art the very credibility it has today.  I do admit to an occasional chiding of one or two of them who I feel were somewhat pompous at times, or who sucked up to the Establishment just a little too much, but the (visual) chiding is always done with love, and most certainly with great respect. 

It was only Goya's high connections at Court that saved him from the lunacy of the Inquisition, for painting the "obscene" Naked Maja, today Universally recognized as one of the greatest works of Art in the world.  Remembering this, amongst the countless tales of madness I am familiar with in connection with censorship - tales that continue even into the twenty-first century! -  one of the reasons I paint the series known as the "LillyEgg Collection" is to celebrate, on behalf of the Old masters, a freedom I can know which they never could but which I imagine most of them would have given anything for; it is almost as if I am painting what I believe some of them might well have painted themselves had they not been caused to live in fear of being hung drawn and quartered for even thinking of creating any such works.  If any of their poor Souls still pace the earth in an agony of frustration, well now at last, once I have finished this series, perhaps their Souls may rest in peace. 

Personally, I celebrate sex as a pure and loving form of communication, regarding it in fact as the "outward and visible sign of the inward and Spiritual grace," For me it is nothing short of worship, of the beauty of women in general - within and without - and the particular beauty of ones own partner or, even more wondrous, of one's Soulmate, if one is lucky enough to find her, as I have been.  Only if sex is abused or perverted could it ever be considered as "obscene" or dirty in any way, and no work of mine would ever abuse sex in any way or on any level.  My only interests are to close the door once and for all in the face of anyone who would have us believe that sex is sinful or dirty - of course it can be, as can politics and religion - that never more clearly seen than now - but when treated with love and respect, as it certainly is by myself, it can only be regarded as beautiful, which is what I, as an Artist, attempt to reflect - as I attempt to further the cause of the things I most believe in...Love, Truth and Beauty.