Brave New Squeaky Clean World

Adam found this but I think everyone should get a chance to see it, even those of you who don't read the comments on this blog. Here is the cover of the book Brave New World. Isn't it classy? So much better than the lame, cleaned up, respectable cover of the copy we read in high school. I bet a lot more kids would read the book if they kept the pulp cover.

Which got me thinking about a really interesting art exhibit I visited on Degas ballerina sculptures. Degas would sculpt pulpy wax forms almost daily, not for public display, but personal practice. Out of this daily practice came one of his most famous works and his only public sculpture, "The Little Dancer Age 14." When The Little Dancer was first exhibited in Paris, it provoked a public outcry and a raging scandal. I chalked that up to Victorian sensibilities, but at this show I learned that The Little Dancer wasn't originally composed of the respectable cast bronze we see in current versions. She was made of wax, had a head of human hair, was dressed in clothing Degas probably bought at a doll shop and wore a cloth ribbon (the later two being the only offensive remnants still represented on the metal replica today). She was a lot closer to something you would see at Madame Tussauds and contemporary critics complained she looked more like a medical specimen than a piece of art. You can read more about it here.
I think it's interesting that as the piece aged, she gradually lost her avant garde qualities and status.



That isn't the only example, the Parthenon which so many people admire for it clean, white marble was originally garishly painted with all kinds of bright colors. The British Museum in the 1930s so preferred the white version (which isn't surprisng, British imperialists were big fans of whiteness) they forcibly removed the last remaining bits of color on the sculptures they obtained.
I wonder why we are always trying to clean up the past, making it cleaner and prettier than it ever was. Are we improving on complex, challenging works when we present their more "ideal" form or are we simply erasing the complexity that makes us uncomfortable? I personally find the cleaned up Little Dancer much more beautiful even if it is much less interesting. I don't know if I would be capable of appreciating the original.