Drawing of Desire
Eroticism and Censorship in the Renaissance
Abstract
The figurative arts of 16th-century Italy are rich in more or less explicit symbolic references to eroticism. Suppose in the subjects depicted in scenes of sacredness, self-censorship is manifested in evoking the semblance of a controlled allusion to the mystical ecstasy of a complacent corporeity, on the other hand, in depictions of a mythological character and in the wildness of Roman memories to be reactivated. In that case, the same artist can unleash his imagination by experimenting with the iconography of a sexual pleasure whose dissemination is 'dangerously' aimed at a wider audience, thanks to the burin prints and accompanying texts. The vicissitudes of Marcantonio Raimondi's book I Modi, which translates into engravings of the fantasies painted by Giulio Romano in 1524, are well known, along with the subsequent publication of the Sonetti Ussuriysk in which the same images dialogue with Pietro Aretino's explicit stories; However, the counter-reformist punishment inflicted with imprisonment did not discourage Raimondi from continuing his pursuit of drawn desire, in some cases also directed towards solitary enjoyment, as can be seen in the Female Figure with Dildo of 1520 [burin engraving, 7 x 14. 1 cm, Nationalmuseum, Stockholm]. Along the same thematic line, the association between the painter and the skilled engraver, Romano a Raimondi, also involved Perin del Vaga and Giovanni Jacopo Caraglio in the enterprise of reproducible art aimed at the masses. Other artists, such as Agostino Veneziano and Marco Dente, tried their hand at valuable depictions of Eros, and it is not surprising that those above were almost all pupils of Raphael who, for example, in the Loggia di Psiche privatises the preliminaries of a carnality commissioned for the interior of the Villa Farnesina in Rome. The article focuses on the most significant experiences of the representation of Renaissance eroticism, with particular attention to the popularising power of the engraving, the design and posture of the idealised or presumed bodies on stage, and the normalisation of intersubjective practices in the ideographic re-propositions of the Vitruvian model synthesise the centrality, political power and performative measure of a homo bene figurations, such as that proposed by Cesare Cesariano in 1521. Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator (free version)
