Christ on the cross with gas mask and dice-shaker; the horizontal beam of the cross is broken at both ends; Christ's freed left hand holds up a small cross; underneath, the caption: "Shut your mouth and keep serving". In 1928, this small drawing famously earned George Grosz a charge of blasphemy. "Blasphemy" literally means "slander". What is usually meant, however, is its most serious manifestation: the slander of the rituals and convictions considered by a community to be inviolable. "Mockery of religion" is the usual definition, therefore. But was Grosz really mocking Christianity?
Continue reading the original piece, chez Eurozine...
3 comments:
Two comments:
(1) It's a little misleading to say "Continue", but have that link to someone else's writing. That idiom usually means that you're linking to a longer piece of your own.
(2) I was frustrated that neither your posting, nor the article you cite, included the offending image, or even a link to it. However after spending a fair amount of time with various search engines, it looks as if the piece isn't online - anywhere! This seems worth mentioning: not only was Grosz charged with blashemy, but the work seems to have been effectively suppressed. (His earlier collection "Ecce Homo" was deemed pornographic, and confiscated.)
Anyway, a very interesting story.
Amended, Geoff.
You're right about the "continue..." even if a bit picky. This blog template doesn't always make it clear that I'm linking somewhere else. Sometimes I neglect to be clear about it also.
Thanks. That's a really powerful piece of art....
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