"Bellini, Giorgione, Titian, and the Renaissance of Venetian Painting," a new show at The National Gallery of Art, shows us not only stunning beauty but also a time when religion and nakedness seemed to go together well. Giorgione, who was a genius with colour, light, and shape, could paint "The Adoration of the Shepherds" with one stroke of the brush and "Portrait of a Woman" with her seductively bared breasts with the next.
What should we think when we see such comfortable camaraderie between people who, in our time, are really on opposite ends of the normal sense of what is right and wrong?
We can't help but wonder if there really was a time when the ways of man to God, in terms of religious depiction, and the ways of God to man, in terms of body design, were comfortable to the same artists and, even more amazingly, approved by the religious and royal people on whom they depended for their brushes and bread.
And what should we think about the current split between conservative church and revealing art in light of these beautiful and refreshing visions?
Dare we admit the intriguing idea that religion at its best must show respect not only for the unseen but also for life as we see it has been made, clothed for ancient shame or social courtesy but also as naked as the day it was born?
Even though such a view may seem radical to our overly sensitive minds, it seems to have been quite normal around the year 1500.
And that view brings up questions that most people in the modern world would rather not talk about.
