Nathan Manna

The Classical Education, or what really happened on the Grand Tour

Photomontage

24″ x 36″

2023

In E.M. Forster’s Maurice, a university professor calls same-sex attraction the “unspeakable vice of the Greeks” and speaks disapprovingly of it. Yet, in the next breath, he was extolling the virtues of Ancient Greece. This piece puts the ideals of Classical education in focus with homoerotic desire. One cannot exist without the other. The classical form is traced from its earliest iterations to today, and eroticization is emphasized. Finally, the crucifix rising like a phallus from sculpture and the various Cardinals represent the simultaneous buy-in and dissonance of the Catholic Church. They likewise disavow the “unspeakable vice of the Greeks.”

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