Rape of the soul: Sexualizing religious art.

Eidolons.
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A couple of years ago, I happened upon a post on Athanasius Contra Mundum concerning a documentary film by Michael Calace titled, Rape of the Soul.  Calace billed himself as one of the world's few experts on embedded imagery in art - specifically Roman Catholic religious art.  I posted on the subject but removed my post because there was a conflict about copyright or something to that effect.  I received an email from the production company, insisting I correct a detail in my post or face legal action - it is so long ago, I can't recall the exact language.  I responded by taking down the post and assuring them I simply employed the premise on which their documentary was based to discuss my personal observations regarding the subject, although I was rather skeptical about a couple of the examples Calace pointed to in the film.  They seemed to be satisfied I wasn't an enemy, and in turn sent me a complimentary DVD of the documentary and asked if I would share my opinion after I viewed it.  I set the DVD aside and forgot about it.  I only came across it yesterday while organizing my desk.
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I watched it.  I can't believe I endured it to the end.  Portions of the documentary are on YouTube - check it out here.  Calace suggests the existence of varied conspiracy theories (for lack of a better word), such as between Oregon Catholic Press and Catholic illustrator/artist Steve (Br. Martin) Erspamer.  Oregon Catholic Press used many of Erspamer's illustration for their missals and other Church publications.  In the video we see Calace extract eidolons from the backgrounds and penwork of Erspamer's work, which he hi-lights, extracts and manipulates to demonstrate the presence of phallic symbols, the word s-e-x, a swastika, and so on.  The film is so far over the top it makes the Dan Brown novels seem like great literature.
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A 2006 film review by the Boston Globe sums it up better than I have time to do...
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''The Rape of the Soul" is a fear-mongering, small-minded, and pathetically smutty polemic about art and the Roman Catholic Church. Presented as a documentary by filmmaker and self-described devout Catholic Michael A. Calace, the film seeks to discredit ''predatory artists" from da Vinci and Botticelli to anonymous designers of contemporary greeting cards.
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Calace's mission: To reveal all the satanic faces, genitalia, spellings of the word sex, and other evidence of evil lurking in painted clouds, shadows, and designs in art related to the Catholic Church. Freud had an eye out for phallic symbols, but he would have had nothing on Calace, who sees penises everywhere he looks. He could find an orgy in a bowl of oatmeal.
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Calace pits the forces of good, led by himself and a bevy of talking heads he calls experts, against the forces of evil: artists and church officials. Along the way, he lassos in the sexual abuse crisis in the church, vaguely equating his findings -- he calls them ''embeds" -- with that scandal. Unidentified still photos of convicted sexual offenders such as John Geoghan float across the screen as child psychologist Judith Reisman speaks about the damaging effects of child abuse.
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Imagery is often designed to play directly to a viewer's unconscious.  That's the nature of propaganda, and of advertising.  But Calace's suggestion that the Archdiocese of Toronto (to name only one) is intentionally leading its flock down a road of sexual depravity and satanic worship by posting on its website an image rife with phalluses and demon faces is ludicrous." - Cate McQuaid, Boston Globe
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I worked in marketing and visual arts, as a painter myself, I know design can be manipulated to speak to the viewer's unconscious.  Yet as McQuaid suggests, "That's the nature of propaganda, and of advertising."  Subliminal imagery has been popularly known about since the 1960's - it is not a secret.  To suggest that medieval artists were using it to sexualize sacred art is quite a stretch.
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To be sure, genre works such as still life may have been sexually suggestive over the centuries, but the very idea that a naively painted outline of the abdominal muscles on the corpus of the San Damiano crucifix represents a phallus is as ludicrous an idea as the Paschal candle represents a phallic symbol in liturgy.  These are modern concepts, modern interpretations often emanating from people consciously or unconsciously obsessed by such imagery.  Modern art is filled with sexual images - artists such as Picasso, Dali, and Warhol unabashedly wove erotica into their work, based upon Freudian psychological theory.  My guess is that many men and women in the United States have been conditioned by our highly sexualized culture since infancy - especially those who grew up in front of the television and video games.  Michael Calace seems to prove that in his documentary.
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What surprises me about these guys - Calace and those who buy into his crap - is that they are well educated people, devout traditionalist Catholics, and family men.  What went wrong?
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Art:  Jan van Eyck, The Arnolfini Marriage.
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Near the end, the lunacy reaches a peak when Calace derides Jan van Eyck's 1434 painting ''The Arnolfini Marriage."  No genitalia here, praise be. Instead, Calace observes that the figures eerily resemble Vladimir Putin and his wife. - Boston Globe
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Notice 'Mrs. Putin' has her veil on. 
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Link:
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You also have to watch this clip - Archdiocese of Toronto Embeds Sex & Horror Art Subliminals  - it is lol funny.