Well the Maenads are indeed in full bacchic debauchery mode. They are dancing round Bacchus leaping and playing instruments. Lets just say that most naked female statues have thier legs firmly together, these don’t. 
It is in my opinion actually a very beautiful piece of art and the full site is truly worth a day or two to visit.
I like this sculpture. When I look at them, they seem free, looking to the sky. Sometimes, nudity in sculpture doesn’t seem to serve much purpose, but here, it definitely makes me think in terms of lack of clothing = freedom of movement, unbinding the body from garments. As to his penis length, it seems normal.
I once knew a black man from Texas who said he’d learned a saying as a child: black men are showers, white men are growers. Meaning, I guess, that the typical black man has a bigger flaccid penis than the typical white man.
True? Not true? I don’t know for sure, but my experience is that it is true, so the claim that this particular sculpted penis is disproportionate with the man on which it was sculpted doesn’t seem like a valid complaint.
I think the objections may stem more from the (what I understand to be) pervasive homophobia in Jamaican society rather than concerns about modesty. Witness the popularity of rap songs like “The Chi-Chi Man,” which celebrates homophobic violence, specifically violently burning alive a homosexual Jamaican.
Then again, I could be wrong.
For what it’s worth, that’s how I interpreted the sculpture as well.
As for the Maenads in the Eden project, are they any more detailed and provocative than Auguste Rodin’s “Iris, Messenger of the Gods”? (This sculpture is apparently very difficult to photograph - this image was the best I could locate). I love this particular sculpture, but she does tend to raise eyebrows.
Why do I have it in the back of my mind that in classical art (Greek and Roman and Renaissance) that a big or even naturalistic penis was indicative of a buffoon while nudity was a reference to all that was pure, noble and beautiful? That dichotomy my have something to do with the mixed reaction to this sculpture.
Part of that, Spavined, is (go back to your Art History 101 now) that the Greeks and Romans believed that art’s representation of man should idealize that which is beautiful in him, and that there was a “correct” proportion to man’s features - the nose, hands, penis, frame, etc. The ancient Greeks idealized the male youth, and so many of the male nudes are youths with youthful, underdeveloped features, and yes, little penises. Apparently, the ancients preferred smaller penises to bigger ones, but don’t ask me for a cite.
Spavined Gelding, I believe you’re right about the Greeks attributing large penises to individuals of lesser intelligence. And it probably did have something to do with the large penis representing the triumph of animal lust over human rationality, and therefore indicating a less than ideal temperament.
IANAC [I am not a Classicist], but I seem to recall the Greeks usually depicted dwarfs with grotesque faces and monstrous penises. This does not demonstrate a very enlightened view of little people on the part of the Greeks.
The Romans, on the other hand… well, judging by their art, they seem to have better appreciated the virtues of a large penis. The god Priapus typically has a huge erection, and as a harbringer of good luck, his presence was necessary in most Roman households. You find his image in several places at Pompeii, including this sculpture and this simply amazing painting (the latter is from the House of the Vettii and, yes, he’s balancing the weight of his phallus against the weight of a sack of coins–indicating the equal distribution of wealth and good fortune in the Vettii household).
Other Roman gods sometimes took on priapic attributes, as in this impressive sculpture a polyphallic Mercury. They would have hung bells on the extra head phalluses, kind of like this.
I’m not sure if any of these Greek or Roman precedents had any impact on the current debate over the Jamaican sculpture. I think, however, that when most people envision nude sculptures, they tend to think of the classical Greek figures (with their small, unexcited penises) rather than those Roman Priapus figures.
Maybe the penis looks longer because the rest of the legs aren’t visible?
And she’s pretty young, I guess.
Besides, shouldn’t this statue have some standard fertility symbolism? Yeah,
"It was supposed to symbolise liberation and celestial reverence in an independent Jamaica ", [bold mine]
definitely has ‘father and mother of a nation’ connotations.
I have seen Japanese miniature figurines that features larger, longer, more erect lovepipes that what’s depicted.
I suppose male statues aren’t supposed to have them anymore? Give me a break.
