(no subject)

  

The Manchester Art Gallery in Britain has removed a painting by JW Waterhouse, Hylas and the Nymphs, from its walls (https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2018/jan/31/manchester-art-gallery-removes-waterhouse-naked-nymphs-painting-prompt-conversation). The painting depicts a Greek myth of a young man tempted to his doom by a group of half-naked water nymphs. Postcards of the same work were also removed from the gift shop. The gallery’s reason for doing so, according to curator Clare Gannaway, was to provoke debate rather than to censor. The decision was, she said, influenced by the #MeToo movement, and hinged on her opinion that the painting (along with many of its contemporaries in a particular exhibition) was primarily about the way women were rendered as either passive objects or femmes fatales.

 

But hold the phone. If the intention is to cause debate about the subject matter of the painting, how will removing it accomplish that? By barring the public from even seeing it, the gallery has already effectively made the decision that Waterhouse’s work must not be shown. And that sets a dangerous precedent, especially when you examine the story behind the art’s subjects.

 

Acording to ancient writers, Hylas was beloved of the Greek hero Herakles, and his kidnapping by the nymphs prompted a desperate, but ultimately fruitless search to recover him. Those nymphs acted out of friendship for their friend, who had fallen desperately in love with him. The youth was unable to withstand their temptation. Femmes fatales? Certainly. But in reducing the myth to the moment captured in the painting, the gallery has completely missed the point. If anything, there may be conversations to be had here about Hylas being reduced to a passive object - but the gallery has decided that any such complexity does not suit its purposes.

 

So far, the conversation has centred on what amounts to the censorship of the painting itself. No one is talking about the subject matter, supposedly the reason for its removal in the first place. The decision has been made for us - this art is, officially, bad for us.

 

What’s next? Removal of statues of the Virgin Mary, on the grounds that she was forced to bear a child, and is now held up as an impossible example for young women? Censorship of Wuthering Heights, which depicts toxic, abusive relationships as romantic? The rape scene in Deliverance cut altogether? All of these, taken out of context, send terrible messages to the viewer or reader, as does Hylas. Even in context, they’re problematic, and provocative. But this is exactly why they should continue to be available - to provoke debate, to ask the questions and examine ourselves.

 

And before you dismiss the idea that removing Hylas could be the prelude to further censorship, think about this. It’s not that long ago that Lady Chatterley’s Lover was banned altogether due to its exploration of an extra-marital sexual relationship. Even more recently, Allen Ginsberg’s poem Howl was the subject of an obscenity trial, because its subject matter was controversial and provocative. At what point does it stop?

 

Hylas, - like Deliverance, like Howl - is a work of fiction that challenges us by its very subject matter. Arguably, that is one of the most important functions of art. It moves us emotionally, it makes us think. And if that pushes us to examine some uncomfortable (or even painful) ideas about ourselves, then that is all the more reason it should be accessible to everyone.