In 1991, touring the world's sites meant visiting real, non-virtual sites, which are the targets of this series of columns. It was the year I walked around the Vatican site and tried to find a little peace in the Sistine Chapel packed with tourists like me. I marveled at the ceiling, but the fantastic “The Last Judgment” was covered up for restoration. As I never returned to the Vatican, this immense fresco that covers the entire altar wall of the Sistine Chapel remains in my collection of memories through the countless reproductions available in books and websites dedicated to Michelangelo's work. Today a virtual visit is also possible (but without tourists obstructing the view). [I]
The painting of the altar, with a beardless Christ in the center, was completed in 1541 and upon its first visit (by church authorities) it generated controversy, with the author's insensitivity to appropriate decorum in relation to nudity (total, including that of Jesus Christ) and other aspects of the work (inclusion of pagan figures, for example) and the fact that the painter would be more concerned with “artistic effects” than with following the description given by the scriptures to the event portrayed. According to Giorgio Vasari, a contemporary of Michelangelo and considered the first art historian, at the “preview” of the altar, the Vatican master of ceremonies, Biagio da Cesena, declared that “it was the greatest shame that in such a sacred place they were depicted all these nude images, exposing themselves in such a shameful way, not being a work for a papal chapel but for a public bath or a tavern”. Michelangelo reacted immediately, repainting the face of the figure of Minos (bottom right corner of the altar), one of the judges of hell, with the features of Cesena, adorned with donkey ears and his nakedness covered by a serpent. To the protests of the master of ceremonies, the pope replied that he had no jurisdiction over hell, therefore the portrait would have to remain that way. The Pope himself was criticized for not intervening in the work and constant requests continued for it to be redone. More than twenty years passed and the final session of the Council of Trent (1563) translated into text the “attitudes towards the art of the Catholic Counter-Reformation”. There was an explicit decree that the paintings in the apostolic chapel were covered and that those in other churches were destroyed if they represented obscenities or were clearly false compared to the scriptures. The story is long with comings and goings, but after Michelangelo's death his genitals were covered with paintings of soft curtains. Some later interventions were removed in the restoration whose sidings I saw on my visit.
The “Last Judgment” case is the first in a timeline that I found in a post [II], when searching with the keyword “art censorship” on Google. Unmissable, although frightening due to its content, is the Freemuse website – defending artistic freedom. Scary because of the realization of how much worse things have gotten since Michelangelo. Freemuse is responsible for annual reports on attacks on artistic freedom around the world. The last [III], released in May of this year, refers to 2016, in addition to essays, it contains a table that summarizes the world. There are 1.028 violations of artistic freedom in more than 70 countries around the world, divided into three murders, two kidnappings, 16 attacks, 84 arrests, 43 lawsuits, 40 persecutions or threats and 840 censorships. Brazil appears with a case of censorship of a poem [IV] On the report. The number in next year's report will be higher. At the beginning of October, news appeared on the Freemuse website about the interruption of the Queermuseu exhibition, in Porto Alegre [IN]. The sources are articles from The Guardian and NYT. There you can access the video posted on Facebook that triggered a regrettable sequence of reactions that culminated in the suppression of expression and debate of ideas by the art in question. The consequences unfolded, taking the silence, sometimes even announced in a sadly proud way, to other places, reminiscent of Chico Buarque's lyrics. Speaking of memories, the video mentioned above also recalls some scenes from the Seventh Seal, by Ingmar Bergman, which “remains very current in its defense of art as an antidote to religious intolerance in apocalyptic times” in the words of Ricardo Calil.
I keep trying to imagine what Michelangelo would have done in Porto Alegre, São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro if he were here.
[II] http://www.huffpostbrasil.com/entry/art-censorship_n_6465010
[IV] http://artsfreedom.freemuse.org/news/brazil-poet-censored-in-bahia/
[IN] http://artsfreedom.freemuse.org/news/brazil-exhibition-closed-early-controversial-works/
