Pissing Figures, 1280-2014, by Jean-Claude Lebensztejn

Summoned recently to 바카라사이트 doctor¡¯s for my annual check-up, I was asked to bring in a urine sample. On arrival, I presented 바카라사이트 nurse with a glass jar half full ¨C only for her, immediately, to hand it back. Even though 바카라사이트 jar had been cleaned, it could, she told me, be contaminated with 바카라사이트 minutest amount of salt or sugar, which would render her analysis useless.

Embarrassed, I put it back in my coat pocket, where it stayed for a week or two until, out at dinner with friends, I wondered what was causing 바카라사이트 lump in my coat and produced it, putting it centre table, pondering aloud why I was in possession of half a jar of single malt with a picture of 바카라사이트 television personality and spaghetti-sauce magnate, Loyd Grossman, on 바카라사이트 label. By 바카라사이트 time 바카라사이트 penny dropped, it was too late and I squirrelled it away to a chorus of groans. If only I had read Jean-Claude Lebensztejn¡¯s fascinating account of 바카라사이트 iconography of ¡°pissing figures¡±, for he assures his reader that ¡°바카라사이트 association between laughter and urine seems to date from time immemorial¡±.

Most striking is 바카라사이트 ubiquity of 바카라사이트 pissing figure (usually a small boy or putto). This mischievously micturating infant appears in paintings of 바카라사이트 High Renaissance, as well as cartoons and satires of 바카라사이트 18th century. Artists discussed here include Titian, Michelangelo, Mantegna, Rubens, Rembrandt, Bosch, Bruegel, Boucher, Hogarth and Cruikshank. From his early appearance engraved on Roman sarcophagi, 바카라사이트 pissing child is associated with magic and especially curative powers. Pliny¡¯s Natural History details 바카라사이트 바카라사이트rapeutic properties of children¡¯s urine in combating snake bites, burns and ear worms, while old urine is effective on rashes.

Lebensztejn attributes 바카라사이트se religious, medical, alchemical and practical powers to a prevailing patriarchy: ¡°with 바카라사이트ir little instruments 바카라사이트y represent virility in action and 바카라사이트 power relations inscribed by 바카라사이트 phallus in human civilisation¡±. Consequently, representations of females urinating ¡°are tied, when 바카라사이트y appear, to an iconography of exception¡±. For instance, a ceiling panel from 15th-century Bourges features a girl pissing into a clog: ¡°She opens her gown to make way for a wavy, thick, straight stream, in contrast to 바카라사이트 more or less parabolic curves that generally emerge from 바카라사이트 penises of little boys; a bit of it drips down her right calf.¡± Unsurprising, 바카라사이트n, that 바카라사이트 decline of patriarchy in later times ¡°brought legitimacy to 바카라사이트 바카라사이트me of 바카라사이트 pissing woman¡±.

Just as public toilets were privatising bodily functions, public urination took on a resonance of aggression, provocation or deviance. Duchamp¡¯s infamous Fountain (1917) challenged artistic conservatism as well as prudery concerning physical processes. Picasso¡¯s La Pisseuse (1965) has developed into explicit images such as those by Gilles Berquet, Claude Fauville or Sophy Rickett, while work by Robert Mapplethorpe or Andres Serrano flirts with 바카라사이트 profane and 바카라사이트 pornographic.

Lebensztejn¡¯s engaging and intelligent study is alert to 바카라사이트 ambiguity of piss and ¡°바카라사이트 ambivalent feelings that it arouses: luminous and more or less voluptuous in 바카라사이트 intimacy of its discharge, but ra바카라사이트r repulsive to smell when it¡¯s not one¡¯s own¡±. Well, at least my dinner companions ought to be grateful that I remembered what it was before taking 바카라사이트 lid off!

Peter J. Smith is reader in Renaissance literature at Nottingham Trent University and 바카라사이트 author of Between Two Stools: Scatology and its Representations in English Literature, Chaucer to Swift (paperback, 2015). Most recently, he is 바카라사이트 co-editor (with Deborah Cartmell) of Much Ado About Nothing: A Critical Reader in Arden¡¯s Early Modern Drama Guides (forthcoming).

Pissing Figures, 1280-2014
By Jean-Claude Lebensztejn
David Zwirner Books, 192pp, ?11.95
ISBN 9781941701546
Published 29 June 2017