So in the
structure and relation of the human body, some of the highest
spiritual ideas, the divinest mysteries of pure worship, are
designedly shadowed forth.
If, then, the painter rightly and sacredly conceives the divine
meaning, and creates upon the canvas, or in marble, forms of exalted
ideal loveliness, we cannot murmur even if, like Adam and Eve in Eden,
"they are naked, and are not ashamed."
And yet even sacred things love mystery, and holiest emotions claim
reserve. Nature herself seems to tell us that the more sacred some
works of art might be, the less they should be unveiled. There are
flowers that will wither in the sun The passion of love, when
developed according to the divine order, is, even in its physical
relations, so holy that it cannot retain its delicacy under the sultry
blaze of profane publicity.
But it is far otherwise with paintings where the _animus_ is not
sacred, nor the meaning spiritual. No excellences of coloring, no
marvels of foreshortening, no miracles of mechanism can consecrate the
salacious images of mythologic abomination.
The cheek that can forget to blush at the Venus and Cupid by Titian,
at Leda and her Swan, at Jupiter and Io, and others of equally evil
intent, ought never to pretend to blush at any thing.
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