The title is a play on the song title “A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square” (that’s Berkeley pronounced like Barclay, not like Burkley), and after an introduction to my colleague Asya Pereltsvaig this posting goes with her on a recent visit to Belgrave Square — Berkeley Square (in Mayfair) and Belgrave Square (in, yes, Belgravia) being two delightful green spaces in the toniest parts of central London — and I will celebrate the Vitruvian Man statue Homage to Leonardo in Belgrave Square. But in the end, today’s essay is about penises — the one on Vitruvian Man, the one on Michelangelo’s David, and the one on Astrid Zydower’s Orpheus — and their acceptability in a variety of cultural contexts.
So, while I have labored to keep the crude references to a minimum, there’s no denying that this posting will end up being, um, phallically rich — which some of my readers will find unsavory and unwelcome; this is a warning about what’s to come.
Asya Pereltsvaig, who is she? From AP’s webpage:
Lifelong Education Bio: Asya M Pereltsvaig [born in Leningrad, then in the USSR, in 1972] received a BA in English and History from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in 1996 and a PhD in Linguistics from McGill University in 2002. She taught linguistics at Yale, Cornell, and Stanford, as well as at several other universities in the U.S. and abroad. Since 2010, Asya has been teaching in lifelong education programs. In 2016, Asya took her teaching online via Zoom. Her expertise is in language and history, and the relationship between them. Her 6th and most recent book, Languages of the World: An Introduction, 4th edition, is scheduled to be published by Cambridge University Press in 2024.
Meanwhile, she’s been preparing a fall course on myths and misconceptions about language. And sending us Facebook reports on her visit to Cultural London: some standard touristic sites and fabulous restaurants, but mostly tons of museums and parks and the opera and plays and an excursion to Bletchley Park and lots more.
Elegant central London. A map of the area:
(#1) Berkeley Square is marked on the map; Belgrave Square is just above the legend BELGRAVIA; the area has an assortment of first-class hotels — among them in Mayfair, Claridge’s, Brown’s, and the Connaught (where, something over 50 years ago my little family — Ann, Elizabeth, Arnold — had a fabulous Sunday brunch)
(Then, in my 9/15/17 posting “A marmot sang in Graubünden meadows”, there’s a section on the song “A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square”.)
Belgrave Square. Late in May, AP posted to Facebook with photos of four statues (coming in a moment) in the leafy garden of Belgrave Square. I was surprised, because I understood that this is a private garden, with access restricted to the owners of the houses on the square (mostly embassies); that’s a fact that will soon become significant. Turns out that AP didn’t go inside. (Berkeley Square, in contrast, is entirely open to the public.)
From Wikipedia:
Belgrave Square is a large 19th-century garden square in London. It is the centrepiece of Belgravia, and its architecture resembles the original scheme of property contractor Thomas Cubitt who engaged George Basevi for all of the terraces for the 2nd Earl Grosvenor, later the 1st Marquess of Westminster, in the 1820s. Most of the houses were occupied by 1840. The square takes its name from one of the Duke of Westminster’s subsidiary titles, Viscount Belgrave. … Today, many embassies occupy buildings on all four sides.
… The private communal garden is 2 hectares (4.9 acres) in size and contains mature plane, chestnut and lime trees [AZ: linden trees], and various shrubs. Its gravel walks were laid in 1854, with privet hedges planted around its perimeter. Wooden pergolas and shelters stand within, and it features a tennis court..
… Sculptures in the gardens include Statue of Christopher Columbus, Statue of Prince Henry the Navigator, Statue of Simón Bolívar, Statue of José de San Martín, Homage to Leonardo, and a bust of George Basevi.
The Statuary. Except for the Basevi bust and the Homage to Leonardo, the statuary is of the heroic military / explorer genre. Two South American military heroes:
(#2) From Wikipedia: A bronze sculpture of Argentine general José de San Martín … It was unveiled on 2 November 1994 by Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh accompanied by the Argentine Ambassador Mario Cámpora. The statue is the work of Argentinian sculptor Juan Carlos Ferraro.
(#3) From Wikipedia: An outdoor bronze sculpture depicting Venezuelan military and political leader Simón Bolívar (1783–1830), by Hugo Daini, is located at the south-east corner of Belgrave Square … The statue was unveiled by James Callaghan, then Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, later Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, in 1974.
Now the centerpiece, not military at all:
(#4) Wikipedia: Homage to Leonardo, sometimes referred to as Vitruvian Man for being a representation of the drawing of the same name by Leonardo da Vinci, is an outdoor statue by Italian sculptor Enzo Plazzotta, located at Belgrave Square in central London, United Kingdom. The statue was completed posthumously by Plazzotta’s assistant Mark Holloway in 1982, and was installed in 1984.
The thing about Vitruvianus in Belgrave Square is that (like the Vitruvian Man drawing) he’s full-frontally nude.
Lookit, Herman — peckers! (in the Thurber original, it was flars!) It’s generally the case, in both the UK and the US, that penises aren’t shown in artworks open to the public gaze, but there are no restrictions in private spaces; and exceptions are sometimes made for recognized great works of work — though in the US, made quite erratically from place to place and occasion to occasion . (Erect penises are even more problematic; in many places in the US, people have to sign consent forms to view engorged organs.) So that it is in fact significant that the garden of Belgrave Square is private.
The model for Vitruvianus there is a famous drawing by Leonardo (which usually escapes the penis ban, but is sometimes reproduced with the penis blocked from view or fuzzed out). From the Britannica site:
(#5) The drawing, with color adjusted from the very yellowed originalVitruvian Man, drawing in metalpoint, pen and ink, and watercolour on paper (c. 1490) by the Renaissance artist, architect, and engineer Leonardo da Vinci. It depicts a nude male figure with the arms and legs in two superimposed positions so that the hands and feet touch the perimeters of both a square and a circle. One of Leonardo’s best-known works, the drawing has become an iconic image, often reproduced in art, science, and commerce.
The Vitruvian Man was partly influenced by the proportional theories of the Roman architect Vitruvius.
From my 4/2/23 posting “The divine phallus”, on Michelangelo’s David (and his penis), and two statues of Orpheus (and his penis), notably a statue by British sculptor Astrid Zydower in 1984, created for the fountain on the central terrace of Harewood House in Yorkshire, a 9-foot bronze of Orpheus carrying a leopard:
(#6) The Harewood House Orpheus [on private grounds]Orpheus in the posture of Leonardo da Vinci’s Vitruvian Man … Orpheus sports a penis in proportion to his body, roughly the mean length for men, and substantial testicles. He’s portrayed here as Ideal Man, in all respects.
