How to publicise an exhibition in the 21st Century...
September 10 2012
Picture: Walker Art Gallery
...find a Penis in a painting! There's all sorts of excitement in the press at the news that a willy has been 'found' in Millais' Isabella, ahead of the new Tate Pre-Raphaelites show. In case you can't find it, it's the erect-looking shadow of the man in the left foreground. From The Independent:
One of the works on show at the exhibition, which opens tomorrow, is the first painting by John Everett Millais as a member of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood he helped found, called Isabella. One Tate curator has uncovered a hidden image in the painting which shows a character in the foreground with what appears to be an erection.
Isabella, painted in 1848 when Millais was just 19 years old, will force people to “shove aside their preconceptions” and “dramatically changes the way we see the work,” Carol Jacobi said. “It gives us a different view of the Victorians.”
The painting shows the character in the foreground on the left angrily leaning forward, with his leg outstretched and using a nutcracker. The sexual suggestion is produced by a shadow on the table.
Dr Jacobi said: “The shadow is clearly phallic, and it also references the sex act, with the salt tipped into the shadow,” before adding: “We can assume it’s deliberate, so then that raises the question: what’s it there for?”
But wait, what's this? I have just this minute 'discovered' two similar 'shadow willies' in Millais' The Carpenter's Shop (Tate, below), a work previously thought to be all about religion. But, Stop the Press - Millais must have been willy mad! And the picture's all about 'wood' - OMG! Can readers find any more examples?
Update - a reader writes:
Pretty sure there's something ropey going on in 'The Ornithologist' too...
... and what's Grace Hoare trying to hide behind that hat? I think we should be told!
Update II - meanwhile, a reader more at home in the 17th Century wonders, justly, what the hell is going on with this Velasquez. Ooph.
I feel a book coming on: 'Da Penis Code', anyone?
