Screen swap for naughty nudes Many minutes

GALLERIES
by Leigh Hatts
CURRENTLY on special view at the National Gallery are pictures once deemed to be obscene.
The Clothed Maja and the Naked Maja are both by Goya, who in 1815 was summoned before the Spanish Inquisition to "declare if they are his works and why he made them". There is no record that he ever turned up to explain but it is suggested that the two paintings were later placed on a revolving screen so that the Naked could be swapped for the Clothed within seconds.
Nude paintings were often covered over when the Spanish royal family entered a room. But the concern over the Naked Maja was not that it was the first real female nude painting the model places her hands behind her head rather than covering her front but that many believed the girl to be a prostitute or even the Duchess of Alba posing as a prostitute.
Few are likely to be shocked today. Most will be intrigued and probably find the Clothed Maja the more realistic and attractive. The two paintings have been placed (until July 1,; free) alongside The Toilet of Venus by Velazquez which may have been Goya's inspiration. The three paintings last hung together in 1813 in Madrid.
Rex Whistler could have been thinking of the Naked Maja and the Venus when he painted The Prince Regent Awakening the Spirit of Brighton. The picture is the most famous in the Royal Pavilion at Brighton where the annual festival is in progress.
This year the international event incorporates a Christian Arts Festival with pier and church venues. There is a recognition that Brighton's churches are repositories of the visual arts.
The tall St Bartholomew's, seen from the railway, was built to the same supposed dimensions as Noah's Ark and has the highest nave of any parish church in England. Westminster Abbey would fit inside but the architecture is reminiscent of Westminster Cathedral. St Bartholomew's is a great Victorian achievement although in the 1980s it was condemned as "unseemly large" and "like a cheese warehouse".
St Michael's in Victoria Road will be open every Saturday this summer. At first sight it appears out of place among the stucco marine residences but it is like a second cathedral .to the Chichester diocese. G. F. Bodley's new church soon proved too small and an extra nave was added by William Burges. The building contains work by Dante Gabriel Rossetti, William Morris, Burne-Jones and Ford Maddox Brown.
This weekend (including Sunday) there is a rare chance to visit John Skelton's famous home and workshop, Blabers Mead, in Streat near Ditchling, just north of Brighton. The exhibition includes over 40 watercolours and drawings as well as sculpture in the water garden. Also on show is the original model for his Virgin and Child statue recently placed in Chichester Cathedral by the Ecumenical Society of the Blessed Virgin Mary.
It is good to see well established local artists contributing to the good design of their local churches. Maggie Organ has designed a pair of
doors made at Buckfast for St Mary's in Surrenden Road where an old porch is being turned into a room for babies to scream in during mass. Parents and children will see the tabernacle and altar through the warm glow of Star of David
windows.
John Armstrong has completed a pictorial mass board for the front of the church whilst his recent icon can be found in the Brighton General Hospital chapel.
His work also appears in
Unorthodox Approaches, the Society of Catholic Artists' exhibition at the Chapel Royal in North Street (daily until June 2; free), which is described as an attempt "to bear some Christian witness to the Brighton scene."