Revealing the Risqué Art of Pompeii’s House of the Vettii

https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/art-pompeii-house-of-the-vettii

by diodorus • 3 years ago

24 13 3 years ago

thom• 3 years ago

Anyone got a link to somewhere cataloguing this imagery?

prox2• 3 years ago

I find it kind of interesting that people are still so shocked by this. Even the article itself is kind of skittish a bit with a cultural bias. Nudity and nakedness, sex seems to be quite normal, especially before the 19th century. But victorian times, protestantism (US) and perhaps India as well made Nudity and Sex a lot more outlawed.

Afaik that was a kind of global phenomenon and I am interested what the historical factors were.

hnbad2• 3 years ago

Well, to be fair, erect pensises and depictions of intercourse are considered risqué if not pornographic even in most of Europe where you might see naked breasts on magazine covers in corner store displays.

prox2• 3 years ago

Indeed, no argument there.

The point I am trying to make is that the moral framework changed so much apparently around the 19th century. Of course you have the British Victorian outlook, the US protestantism (which was quite more militant earlier probably, the pilgrim fathers were outcasts even among in Europe afaik) , and nudity in parts of India was not that strange, and statues tended to be nude as well. The British occupation might certainly have something to do with it.

It’s interesting in as so much that it still pervades society these days, even though porn consumption is quite high in society probably. Someone I know worked for a sextoy factory and more conservative areas were much more likely to buy more and extreme toys interestingly enough.

coupdejarnac• 3 years ago

Lame, no pictures of the art being discussed in the article. Images are from Getty Images.

The author is neither on location nor is an expert on the subject.

The youtube channel toldinstone does a great job of exploring ruins and artifacts.

mrjh• 3 years ago

Strange title as AtlasObscura haven’t actually revealed anything; they’re almost as prudish as the original Victorian discoverers.

Judging by this[1] less prudish source, it doesn’t even seem THAT shocking. There’s a lot of ‘normal’ fresco and only a few pieces of the cheeky stuff…

[1] https://news.artnet.com/art-world/pompeii-reopens-house-of-v...

seydor• 3 years ago

Calling it "risque'" completely misses the mark (as does caling Priapus' fresco erotic; he is just weighing his penis with scales). Priapus was a household deity, pretty much like we have saints in today's world, and this is so regressive. And no reference to the beautiful statue of priapus in the same house. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Priapus_from_the_hou...

bjourne• 3 years ago

The giant penis isn't risqué, but the goatfucking is. :)

car2• 3 years ago

Too bad the art isn't very much on display in this article.

A great book on the topic is 'Eros in Pompeii', which depicts the Erotic Art collection of the Naples Museum [0]. In it is a picture of a statue named 'stupidus', after a character played in mimes. It totally cracked me up, since it immediately reminded me of the aptly named 'shirt cocker', a character encountered at clothing optional Burning Man.

The linked Wikipedia article [1] and especially masters thesis have really good information as well [2].

[0] https://www.amazon.co.uk/Eros-Pompeii-Erotic-Collection-Muse...

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erotic_art_in_Pompeii_and_Herc...

[2] https://www.duo.uio.no/bitstream/handle/10852/41621/Lundgren...

hnbad2• 3 years ago

Can you elaborate on Stupidus for those of us who have neither read the book nor been to Burning Man? Googling "stupidus" provided even less insight than googling "shirt cocker" (even with any attempt of context).

There's a dimly lit photograph of a stupidus statue as figure 11 in the PDF but that doesn't really explain anything either. Is it a character with a big penis and only wearing an upper body garment?

car2• 3 years ago

If you google again but as one word, you should get more hits. And yes, you're correct about the statue.

mseepgood• 3 years ago

Clickbait title. No risqué art is shown.

lostmsu• 3 years ago

There's a website along with publicdomainreview and laphamsquarterly, that is posted relatively often but haven't really given any insights. My TinyTinyRSS instance shows 10+ articles from this domain on HN, neither being of what I'd call "intellectually curious". Oh, well, filter to autodelete.

Revealing the Risqué Art of Pompeii’s House of the Vettii

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