A TRAMP ABROAD By Mark Twain

what this last generation has been doing with the statues.

These works, which had stood in innocent nakedness for ages,

are all fig-leaved now. Yes, every one of them.

Nobody noticed their nakedness before, perhaps; nobody can

help noticing it now, the fig-leaf makes it so conspicuous.

But the comical thing about it all, is, that the fig-leaf

is confined to cold and pallid marble, which would be still

cold and unsuggestive without this sham and ostentatious

symbol of modesty, whereas warm-blood paintings which do

really need it have in no case been furnished with it.

At the door of the Uffizzi, in Florence, one is confronted

by statues of a man and a woman, noseless, battered, black with

accumulated grime–they hardly suggest human beings–

yet these ridiculous creatures have been thoughtfully and

conscientiously fig-leaved by this fastidious generation.

You enter, and proceed to that most-visited little

gallery that exists in the world–the Tribune–and there,

against the wall, without obstructing rag or leaf,

you may look your fill upon the foulest, the vilest,

the obscenest picture the world possesses–Titian’s Venus.

It isn’t that she is naked and stretched out on a bed–no,

it is the attitude of one of her arms and hand. If I

ventured to describe that attitude, there would be a fine

howl–but there the Venus lies, for anybody to gloat

over that wants to–and there she has a right to lie,

for she is a work of art, and Art has its privileges.

I saw young girls stealing furtive glances at her; I saw

young men gaze long and absorbedly at her; I saw aged,

infirm men hang upon her charms with a pathetic interest.

How I should like to describe her–just to see what a holy

indignation I could stir up in the world–just to hear

the unreflecting average man deliver himself about my

grossness and coarseness, and all that. The world says

that no worded description of a moving spectacle is

a hundredth part as moving as the same spectacle seen

with one’s own eyes–yet the world is willing to let its

son and its daughter and itself look at Titian’s beast,

but won’t stand a description of it in words.

Which shows that the world is not as consistent as it

might be.

There are pictures of nude women which suggest no impure

thought–I am well aware of that. I am not railing

at such. What I am trying to emphasize is the fact that

Titian’s Venus is very far from being one of that sort.

Without any question it was painted for a bagnio and it

was probably refused because it was a trifle too strong.

In truth, it is too strong for any place but a public

Art Gallery. Titian has two Venuses in the Tribune;

persons who have seen them will easily remember which one I am

referring to.

In every gallery in Europe there are hideous pictures

of blood, carnage, oozing brains, putrefaction–pictures

portraying intolerable suffering–pictures alive

with every conceivable horror, wrought out in dreadful

detail–and similar pictures are being put on the canvas

every day and publicly exhibited–without a growl from

anybody–for they are innocent, they are inoffensive,

being works of art. But suppose a literary artist ventured

to go into a painstaking and elaborate description

of one of these grisly things–the critics would skin

him alive. Well, let it go, it cannot be helped;

Art retains her privileges, Literature has lost hers.

Somebody else may cipher out the whys and the wherefores

and the consistencies of it–I haven’t got time.

Titian’s Venus defiles and disgraces the Tribune, there is

no softening that fact, but his “Moses” glorifies it.

The simple truthfulness of its noble work wins the heart

and the applause of every visitor, be he learned or ignorant.

After wearying one’s self with the acres of stuffy,

sappy, expressionless babies that populate the canvases

of the Old Masters of Italy, it is refreshing to stand

before this peerless child and feel that thrill which tells

you you are at last in the presence of the real thing.

This is a human child, this is genuine. You have seen him

a thousand times–you have seen him just as he is here–