Art and Obscenity

STEFAN MORAWSKI Art and Obscenity i no, can obscenity arise in art and, if so, what place does it occupy in the artistic IN EXPLORING the relationship between structure as a whole? These questions are of art and obscenity it is easy to stray into a a structural nature, but to answer them we whole labyrinth of disconnected issues. The must also investigate the genesis and func- problem lends itself to examination from tion of the views which maintain there is a variety of viewpoints: the purely analy- such a thing as pornography, a designa- tic, the purely pragmatic (the moral, tion, be it noted, often applied to objects religious, or political angle, for example), which do not, from the aesthetic point of or a combination of the two when it is view, admit of qualification as obscene. hoped that theoretical inquiry will yield Our first task, then, must be to clarify the guidance for a working strategy. Here I two key concepts used in the title of this have chosen for the path of analysis, but essay, which, according to some, may be even this is far from being clear-cut since complementary and, according to others, there are a number of avenues to choose are mutually exclusive. Obscenity and from: sociology (or, in broader terms, pornography, let me add, are used here as culturology), psychology, ethics, aesthetics. synonymous terms. Though obscenity us- Finally, this field can be observed from a ually is understood in a larger sense, com- wider perspective, not so much scientific prising also description of acts which do in the strict sense as philosophical. It not necessarily arouse sexual desires (for seems essential, therefore, since this is to be instance, defecation) or any usage of words an essay and not a book, to narrow the sub- which are dirty but not leading directly to ject, define our point of departure, and sexual associations, I do not wish, for the clearly specify the questions to be asked. purpose of this essay, to draw this distinc- Thus, my frame of reference is aesthetics tion. Pornography is undoubtedly obscene, and, accordingly, the problem of art and and what shall interest us as obscene will obscenity interests me primarily in terms be only of pornographic character. of the structure of art-works. The questions involved in a field of inquiry so limited may be posed as follows: 1) can art I I be pornographic or, in other words, is the aesthetic phenomenon compatible with Art can be defined in various ways. Since those products of culture commonly a discussion of this problem and the es- branded as filth? 2) Even if the answer is tablishment of my own position are be- yond the scope of this essay, let me briefly recapitulate the principles which readers STEFAN MORAWSKI, professor of aesthetics at the familiar with my earlier works will have University of Warsaw, Poland, taught at the Uni- 1 versity of California, Berkeley, Summer, 1966. He seen argued in full elsewhere. In my view, has published many works on aesthetics in Polish we should reject the two extreme ap- and English. proaches which have persistently recurred 194 STEFAN M O R A W S K I in the history of aesthetics, namely, the not only a strictly aesthetic one. It would absolutism which maintains that art is a be wrongheaded, however, to try to supra-historical phenomenon and as such arbitrate on what is or is not a work of has to fulfill certain a priori conditions, art simply on the basis of the nature of and the relativism which holds that the the ideas implied by its mimetic values. list of qualities considered definitive of art Equally questionable is the grading of is inexhaustible since different peoples, in- works of art according to the merits of deed different individuals, have taken a their moral, religious, political ideas. The different view of the extent and substance position to which I adhere might be called of artistic phenomena at different periods structuralist-historical, that is, in the of history. I think it more reasonable to course of historical-cultural processes we avoid either of these poles and look for note the emergence and establishment of certain constants arising out of the natural relatively autonomous objects which we dispositions of the human race and the ac- qualify as artistic and whose basic values cumulated social and cultural experience are of course aesthetic. These may be of mankind. Artistic values have emerged purely formal values but they might in a historical process of gradual de- equally well be mimetic or functional, or tachment from a tissue of magico-religious primarily expressive.2 phenomena, informational or purely rec- Obscenity seems a more straightforward reational pursuits, and technico-productive concept since indecency in art or life endeavors. Eventually they became discrete usually means the same thing to most and independent, as cohesive structures people. But unambiguity is only apparent. furnished either with purely sensory ele- Although the two international conven- ments or with mimetic or functional fea- tions on this subject—Paris, May 4, I9I0 tures. At the same time, each of these more and Geneva, December 31, 1924—seemed or less complex structures may contain ad- to express the conviction that pornography ditional, specific values denoted by the is readily recognizable, neither offered any term expression. The fundamental value clearly phrased definition which would of art, and so its constituent element, is distinguish pornography from art, for ex- thus what Gestaltists call a "pregnant" ample. As will be seen, the problems of structure. But artistic values are of many definition are hardly less formidable than kinds: the purely formal, the mimetic (in in the case of art. Let us take a closer look the representational arts), the functional at the conventional notions of pornogra- (in the applied arts), and the expressive. phy. Obscenity might be defined as the The work of art always recreates some representation or suggestion in words or quasi-real world, contrasted with actual images, with the help of objects, themes, objects, but it is also invariably a physical motifs, or situations, of all those elements or cultural article. For our purposes it is which belong to the sexual life. I have the mimetic values which form the crucial deliberately cast the definition in such layer. They are an integral part of su- general terms so that it can embrace perior artistic structures and it is in them every kind of socio-cultural stereotype. that moral, religious, political, philosophi- Questions, then, immediately come to cal, or other ideas are embodied through mind: what do we mean by "the sexual representation (modified, of course, by life"? Does it refer to displays of nudity, or form and the particular pattern of ele- to descriptions of intercourse, or perhaps ments) of the reality in which we live. to accounts of perversion? Again, where do Such ideas have frequently been the salient the limits of obscenity run in different cul- feature of an artistic structure. We cannot, tural configurations? These are good ques- therefore, exclude the reactions, usually tions, but before we tackle them let us try animated, of the public to these ideas, to improve our working definition of among other things because each work of obscenity. From judicial rulings and no- art is a socio-cultural phenomenon and torious acts of censorship it appears that Art and Obscenity 195 the touchstone is calculated salacity, that form of sexual contact among the lumpen is, deliberate excitement of the sexual proletariat. But, despite the undoubtedly imagination. These were the grounds on relative nature of the concept of obscenity, which Henry Miller's Sexus was confiscated I think the definition given above can be in Norway in 1958-9. Lady Chatterley's usefully adopted for our considerations. Lover was hounded for years on the charge Psychological and sociological factors do that Lawrence, for depraved purposes, was not change the fact that pornography is soliciting readers to follow the example of commonly regarded as flagrant erotic dis- his characters. The same fate was suffered play designed to excite the spectator, by Ulysses.3 reader, or listener. We should, however, There is, however, a more subtle thread remember that the statement "such-and- running through the court cases. This is such a work is obscene" must always be the argument that pornography deals with subjected to specific historical and psycho- the private side of sex. Thus coitus is logical analysis. Otherwise we will not be private but not kissing, homosexual urges able to appreciate why, for instance. Judge but not teenage love-play, masturbation Lockwood sentenced Oscar Wilde to two but not the caresses of husband and wife. years in prison for an offense which for the The reverse side of this argument is the Greeks of Plato's and Alcibiades' day was assertion that the pornographer's handling a socially approved practice, or why the of sex is vulgar and explicit: explicit be- German parliament at the close of the cause of the naturalistic description, vul- nineteenth century banned the Venus de gar because of the deliberate inflation of Milo while the sixteenth, seventeenth, and sex to the exclusion of all the other re- eighteenth centuries had revered the Venus lationships between men and women or of Medici as a pure and matchless monu- human beings in general. ment to feminine beauty. If we adopt these qualifications, we shall mean by obscenity, not the sugges- Ill tion or representation of erotic motives or situations, but a specific kind of treatment, I shall now try to answer the first of the namely, their exploitation for the pur- two questions posed at the beginning of poses of arousing the sex instincts of the this essay.

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