US Collectors of ancient coins claim that their hobby helps the Americans "appreciate ancient culture". Moved perhaps by such sentiments, in last week's snow a Rahway New Jersey family sculpted a replica of the Venus de Milo described as "curvaceous, bodacious and booty-licious" (sic). Sadly not everybody in the neighbourhood was so appreciative of the classical lines of the marble-white form. The police received an anonymous complaint and sent an officer round to the family's house to ask them to dress the nude snow sculpture, which was accordingly garbed in a green bikini top and a blue sarong bottom. I wonder if the Metropolitan Museum over the river will now be being asked to cover up some of its sculptures and more explicit Greek vases?A friend of mine once wrote a kids' book on "the Romans" and had a two-page cut-away picture of the Roman baths with little people inside showing what went on in different parts of Roman baths. The problem was that the drawings had to be redesigned with each figure strategically placed in order to avoid showing any naked 'naughty parts' (including naked buttocks and breasts), because the publisher wanted it to be suitable for the US market. Experience had taught him that US publishers were highly sensitive to this. American children of course do not have buttocks and apparently are to have their eyes shielded from them, even in books about classical culture. As for the sculpted breasts of New Jersey Venuses...
Photo: New Jersey Family Asked to Cover Up Nude Snow Woman (AP/ Fox News).
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