"Life" by Charles Adrian Pillars in Riverside's Memorial Park.
Memorial Park, Riverside is considered to be one of Jacksonville’s better parks. It was created as a tribute to the 1,200 Floridians who gave their lives during the First World War. It opened in 1924 and now forms a focal point in the district.
Driving past the park, last weekend, I was heartened to see portable goals set up at either end of the central grassed area and a game of football in full swing. I refuse to call it soccer for my American audience. The sooner they learn that the Federation of International Football Associations governs the game throughout the world, the better. And if they cannot learn to call the greatest game in the world Football, and their own national game American Football, then I am off and taking the ball with me.
The park overlooks the St. Johns River, quite why the apostrophe is absent escapes me, and the centrepiece of the walkway by the river is a bronze sculpture, “Life” by Charles Adrian Pillars (1870-1937). The sculpture is quite splendid in some ways but part of it does offend my European sensibilities.
Once again, it comes down to the subject of balls. To put it simply, the nude male figure depicted in the sculpture doesn’t have any. So an otherwise fine piece of artistic endeavour becomes, frankly, ridiculous thanks to American prudery.
Imagine how Michelangelo’s “Statue of David” would look if he had decided not to include the genitalia. He probably would have finished it a couple of weeks earlier but would have been right out of the running for the Sistine Chapel contract and the world would have been a poorer place.
No doubt if Pillars had included genitalia in his sculpture, some fascist evangelical Baptist pastor, stand up so the rest of the class can see you, would have insisted that a towel be draped round the torso, or diapers attached, in the name of decency.
I have never been inside a Baptist church; with my liberal views, why would I want to step inside a cauldron of intolerance and fermenting hypocrisy? But I wonder if Adam and Eve are portrayed wearing Speedo swimwear.
Pillars’ “Life” offends me because it is a distortion of truth and art, at least good art, is supposed to be about truth. If the censorship was self-imposed, and it may well have been for all I know, why did Pillars choose to depict a male nude if he was not comfortable showing male genitalia? If, on the other hand, the censorship came from outside, he should either have walked away from the commission or stood by his artistic integrity.
In both scenarios, Pillars does not emerge with his reputation intact. Maybe he just lacked the balls.
The St. Johns River from Memorial Park, Riverside.
1 Comment
July 10, 2008 at 6:57 pm
Thanks for these dead-on remarks. I still haven’t figured it out. Here in America, the most dreadful, ruthless gore and brutality is acceptable, but the human body is indecent. Where did it all go wrong?