"They Were Fruitful...", Part 2.3: Italiana (e l'ignudo)

As you may have noticed, much classical and Renaissance art frequently portrays nude men, women and children. The two examples at left are from the lobby of the Florentine hostel in which I stayed.

So, I have entitled this closing section "e l'ignudo" (...and the nude). This can be an awkward artistic experience for those of us accustomed to public nudity being illegal and artistic depictions of nudity being accompanied by an "R" rating.

I will confine my musings about the moral implications of all of this to my mind and possibly a later post. For now, I will just comment on a few aspects of the nude are that I found surprising.



Many works of art portray historical or mythological figures, and portraying them nude is often inaccurate. For instance, above is a copy of Michelangelo's David. While David did not wear Saul's armor, I suspect he wore something because his culture was even less tolerant of nudity than ours, as one of his wives once reminded him. Also, Wikipedia mentions, "the statue seemed to portray an uncircumcised male, whereas the historical King David was undoubtedly circumcised."


Above is Jason, captain of the Argo, holding the mythical golden fleece. Again, I suspect he wore something when defeating the strange monster crushed beneath his feet, and I hope he struck a more dignified pose when triumphantly displaying the fleece.

Of all the nude mythical figures, the most annoyingly inaccurate was the one of Perseus shown at left. Film fans among you may remember him as one of the heroes of the film Clash of the Titans. Stargazers among you may recognize him as a constellation. He is depicted here holding the severed head of Medusa. According to myth, she could turn people to stone with a single glance. By depicting a nude Perseus, this marvellous bronze sculpture omits the tool that made his defeat of Medusa possible. He was able to attack the monstrous woman using a highly polished gold shield to watch her reflection rather than look at her directly. That shield is conspicuously absent from this sculpture.


The only figure I saw who was portrayed as inaccurately clothed was the crucified Jesus. He is the central figure in this unfinished wooden sculpture by Michelangelo. Roman crucifixion victims were stripped nude to further humiliate them as they were tortured to death. No evidence indicates that Jesus was exempt from this practice. In the case of Jesus, the Roman soldiers "cast lots, dividing up His garments among themselves" (Luke 12:34).

I saw nude angels, biblical heroes, mythological figures, and others, but the body of Jesus, whether on the cross or shortly thereafter, always had a loin cloth similar to the one seen here. I am not sure why he received this special treatment when so many other characters were inaccurately portrayed nude.




Nudity can be an accurate or at least appropriate depiction of some figures. For instance, above is Venus of Urbino by Tizian that resides in the Ufizi. Another sculpture of the goddess, which is in the Bargello, is shown at left. Since she is the pagan Roman goddess of sexual love and the mother of Eros, from whom we derive the English word erotic, sensually nude portrayals seem fitting. However, I must admit that I had to take care not to stare for too long.

Some very strange nude works of art are stuck in my memory from this trip. I shall now endeavour to lodge them in yours.



According to the label, this is Pan and Olympus. Pan, as you can see, is not quite human.



Another odd sculpture was displayed in the Bargello in several sections. One section is shown above. It seems quite ordinary until one sees the next pieces, which are shown below.


The woman in the center is the source of water for this fountain. I leave the reader to discover where the water left her body.



The plaque shown above is a drawing of how all the elements of this fountain were originally arranged. Like all other nude sculputres I saw, male genitals were shown in full detail, but the women's were non-existant. That seems somwhat unbalanced.



The translation of this explanatory text was made by my friend and colleague Gabriele.

The "Fountain" was commissioned by Cosimo I to be realized by Bartolomeo Ammannati in 1556 for the south side of the "great room" (the Hall of the Five Hundred) in Palazzo Vecchio. The statues were completed in 1561 and four of them were later moved to the Lanzi's Lodge (Loggia dei Lanzi) while waiting to be placed in the palace for the wedding of Francesco I (1565), but in fact they were never moved to the palace. Francesco I ordered the statues be moved to his villa in Pratolino, were the "Fountain" was installed. In 1588, the Granduca (great duke) Ferdinando I, anticipating his wedding with Cristina di Lorena, moved the "Fountain" again, this time to Palazzo Pitti, on the terrace of the courtyard. From here, in 1635 the statues were moved to the garden of the Casino di San Marco, to finally come back to Boboli in 1739, in the occasion of the celebrations for Francesco di Lorena. While they had been arranged each in a separate location in the Boboli garden, they have been finally reunited at their arrival, at different times, to the Bargello Museum.

I was surprised by this dry historical commentary. No part of this exhibit acknowledged that this sculpture seemed to belong in a scene from Animal House rather than in an art museum. Maybe I am just being prudish.

To conclude this entry, I share the greatest irony observed in Italy. As you can see, before entering the cathedral in Pisa, visitors are warned that food, smoking, and excessively revealing clothing are not allowed inside.

The guidebooks had prepared me for the cathedral dress code, and since all of my clothing was formal for the conference, I had no reason to worry. When visitors arrived with too little clothing, I was surprised that code was enforced with blue smocks.

Since I was in a church, a proper dress code seemed natural. However, the large paintingns hanging from the wall defied this logic. The great irony is that the dress code was enforced upon the visitors but not upon the artwork!



I suppose you could call it a double standard!

So ends my series of entries about my visit to Italy. I thank God for the opportunity and hope you enjoyed reading about it.

My Presentation to CGSA on Creation Care

Creation Care: A Sometimes Inconvenient Mission

• InterVarsity Video: "All Things" (see earlier post for more details)
  
• Power Point Presentation
• Bibliography
  

Is the weather outside actually that frightful?

Behold, the snowstorm that closed The Ohio State University!

Below is an image taken from the third floor of the Physics Research Building. This is what caused my first snow day since high school. In my university career, this is the second time that my university has closed. The first was the closing of the University of Minnesota on Sept. 11, 2001.

Fox News, is global warming non-existent or unstoppable?

As you may know, the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) released the first part of its Fourth Assessment Report, which is a "Summary for Policymakers," on February 4, 2007. This has received significant coverage in the media, but different outlets have covered it in very different ways.

The headline from CNN.com emphasized the summary's conclusion that humans are "very likely" to be causing global warming. The Fox News headline states that the report says that global warming is "man-made" and "basically unstoppable," which is a more certain and more dire perspective than CNN. However, a commentary by regular "Junk Science" columnist Steven Milloy, attacked the report by claiming that it and the "alarmists" who wrote it are part of the "the global warming carnival." He also claims that the existence of global warming (a.k.a. global climate change) is the subject of "a raging debate."

Milloy's comments come as no surprise to me, but I was surprised to see Fox simultaneously featuring two polar opposite reactions to the report. The two poles have one thing in common: they provide no motivation for the reader to change behavior. If humans are causing global warming, maybe we are obligated to change our individual and collective behavior so that we stop causing it. Conversely, if we are not causing global warming, we have no reason to change the status quo. If we are causing it but it cannot be stopped, any changes would be futile and pointless. Personally, I think our home planet is a good Creation of God; therefore, we should make some effort to cultivate it and keep it.

Experiment in Posting Video

The following video was taken by my moblie phone camera at the bottom of the Collider Experiment Hall pit at SLAC.

Critiques and Praise for President Bush

Congressman David Wu (D-OR) recently made what may be the funniest, geekiest, and most strangely accurate critique of the Bush administration. It was featured on the Jan. 20 broadcast of Wait Wait Don't Tell Me on NPR. According to Congressman Wu,...

...this is a real Klingon, and...	...this is a "faux-Klingon."

I must agree with his assertion that "Vulcan" is a poor description of the neo-conservative advisers in the White House, as the following exchange from "The Immunity Syndrome" indicates.

Spock: I've noticed that about your people, doctor; you find it easier to understand the death of one than the death of a million. You speak about the objective hardness of the Vulcan heart... yet how little room there seems to be in yours.

McCoy: 'Suffer the death of thy neighbor,' eh Spock? Now, you wouldn't wish that on us, would you?

Spock: It might have rendered your history a bit less bloody.

A harsher critique of the President was sent to me by an Italian friend. I don't agree with everything he says, but I think it is worth considering.

To be fair, I agree with President Bush on many important issues, at least in principle. I indicated this in an earlier entry on the issue of unborn children.

InterVarsity's Twenty-First Student Missions Convention Highlights: Luke's edition

Prompted, more or less, by my new housemate Chris and his blog, I will share the parts of InterVarsity's Twenty-First Student Missions Convention that were most memorable to me. I echo all of the comments Chris made; his highlights were highlights for me as well, but I shall not be redundant.

Let me explain the daily schedule of the five-day convention. "Main sessions" were held on the morning and evening of each day; all convention delegates (approx. 22,000) gathered in the Edward Jones Dome (home field to the Saint Louis Rams) to worship, hear teaching, watch drama, and see video presentations. Late mornings were spent in large (approx. 1,000) group Bible studies. Each afternoon was devoted to smaller seminars; dozens were held at various locations near the dome. Convention delegates could choose which seminars (if any) to attend. I have divided my memories into three categories.

The Stunning

The drama team presented a play in several small scenes during the convention. The acting and writing were, in my opinion, fairly good. The two scenes shown on the morning of Dec. 28 were particularly powerful. The first was a dream sequence in which a student on a short term missions trip to Egypt encounters a group of African Christians about to embark on a trip to the United States.

Their leader states, in reference to the motto on US currency, "I believe America has forgotten how to trust God." They explain that the war in Iraq "has made made things very difficult for some Muslims, and it makes relationships between Muslims and Christians over here very difficult." "Your policies have made it very difficult for us, especially Christians, in our region." They are preparing to "go in front of the government of the US to get them to change their policies for the sake of" their people. This scene ends with one of the Africans asking, "have you and your friends spoken to your government?"

The second scene is an frank conversation between two young men repairing their bicycles. One is a Christian. The other is homosexual; he asks, "Why do Christians hate gays?" The Christian says that "the Bible isn't so much anti-gay as pro-sex." They do not offer an easy resolution, but they do honestly address tough questions.

Several video presentations from 2100 Productions, which "is InterVarsity's multimedia department," were interspersed among the speakers, dramatic presentations, and songs at the main sessions of the convention. As I mentioned in an earlier entry, the most stunning few minutes for me came during a video presentation about Christian Creation Care entitled "All Things." It acknowledged the existence of global warming without question and quoted harsh words from Ezekiel against those who do not care for the Creation, and my jaw dropped in astonishment.

The Annoying

Unlike Chris, I will share some parts of this convention that I did not like. Most memorably, two of the speakers seemed to condone a dismissive attitude toward mathematics.

Lisa Chinn is an InterVarsity staff member; she spoke to the main session on the evening of Dec. 30 on the topic of cross cultural missions. While telling the story of her life, she said, "In college I chose to major in foreign service because I heard that it only had one required math course."

Sharon Cohn, who is a lawyer for International Justice Mission, spoke to the main session on the evening of December 29. After telling the horrifying story of a girl named Elizabeth who was rescued from sexual slavery, she exhorted the delegates to "imaging what God might want" us to do about injustice. "Imagine how many more enemies injustice could have this evening."

I support IJM financially and with my prayers. Ms. Cohn is doing extremely laudable work, but she irked me when she told the delegates not to let their perceived smallness keep them from bravely following God's call for justice. She said, "Okay, so you don't know exactly what to do. There is so much...27,000,000 slaves...You are so small. Also, you might be failing calculus, but so what?"

So, I passed calculus. I could not do the work I am doing in Physics without passing calculus. You cannot present credible Christian apologetics to people like Carl Sagan or Richard Dawkins without passing calculus. You cannot achieve what Francis Collins has achieved if you choose a major because it has only one required math course. You cannot conceive, design, and build machines that use antimatter to kill cancer without passing calculus and many more advanced math courses. I wonder if you can be accepted into law school after failing calculus.

The Advertising

The convention partially compensated for the aforementioned negative attitudes towards mathematics by placing a greater emphasis on the value of a scholarly or professional calling than at the previous convention in 2003. One of the 16 seminar tracks was dedicated to "Academia & the Workplace." I attended as many seminars in this track as I could, and they encouraged me to pursue my vocation as a Christian scholar.

Chris made an advertisement at the end of his highlights, and so shall I. The Emerging Scholars Network, which presented several of the seminars, "is called to identify, encourage, and support the next generation of Christian scholars, at all stages of their academic careers, who seek to be a redeeming influence within higher education." Among other things, they want to encourage me and other Christians to pass calculus and our other required math courses on our way to becoming high-quality scholars and exemplary Christians. They support my vocation when many other Christian organizations and leaders do not. I am a member, and I ask all of the Christian scholars reading this to consider membership as well.