The Thirty-Ninth Night

 

It was a warm night in the eternal summer of the tropical island where I live with Nick and some nine hundred other souls.

We were playing a game of backgammon after dinner when Nick asked me:

“Hey, when you’re making your art, do you ever do nudes?”

I tried to suppress a laugh, thinking of the strange questions Nick so often throws at me out of nowhere.

“I don’t know how to do nudes. When I was young, before my conversion, I did a lot of pornography, with naked people—but actual nudes? Not really.”

“Wait—being nude is different from being naked?”

“In art, there’s a subtle distinction. It’s the same kind of difference that exists between eroticism and pornography.”

“So... a nude is more artistic?”

“A nude is an invitation to contemplate the beauty of the body—just as the erotic is a beautiful suggestion of the sexual act, or sexual stimuli. But ever since my conversion, I’ve been abandoning any representation of sex—which is very hard for me. I have a strong libido.”

“But why though?”

“To avoid breaking the sixth and ninth commandments. I’ve been trying to follow more closely the principles of medieval art. The Middle Ages mark the height of Christendom, and in its art, you find neither nude people nor naked ones—or rather, yes, but only at the margins.”

I paused briefly and went on:

“Sometimes I dare to sketch a nude—and in those moments, I try to draw from the Greeks, the masters of the nude. But the result never pleases me.”

“Why not?”

“The Greeks are too rigid—and above all, without emotion. Greek statues neither laugh nor cry. They are impassive. It was Catholicism that introduced the representation of emotion into the human body. Christian joy had to be shown. But tell me, dear Nicholas—where did this curiosity come from?”

“Last week, you left a statue out in the open...”

“Ah! Yes, I remember. One of the naked ones.”

“Not a nude?”

“Not a nude. The naturalism of the pose and the modeling shows a man who is naked. A beautiful, naked body made to stir desire—not to invite contemplation of beauty.”

Nick closed his eyes to revisit the statue and said:

“Yeah... I think I get what you mean.”

“I just gave shape to my own desire.”

“I think I get it, yeah. But—is that bad? I mean, you’re an artist. You’ve gotta express yourself, right?”

“Reducing art to the expression of my own subjectivity is exactly what I don’t want. Art is a way of coming to know the Truth—not someone’s inner mood.”

“But what is the Truth?”

I smiled at my own Pilate and said:

“Truth is Jesus, because He is God, the cause of all things. My subjectivity will show in how I present Him—but never as the subject itself.”

Nick looked at me with the eyes of someone who’s seeking something deep.

 

37 “You are a king, then!” said Pilate.
Jesus answered, “You say that I am a king. In fact, the reason I was born and came into the world is to testify to the truth. Everyone on the side of truth listens to me.”
               38 “What is truth?” retorted Pilate.  (John 18:37-38)