Imgur | scopecreepstudio

Christian College Censors Classic Art In Textbook, Including The Mona Lisa

Updated September 8, 2021

For the most part, it's not safe to assume that people want to see our nude bodies.

If we were to try and live an average day with everything hanging out, we'd likely find that we wouldn't be able to get into many of the places we usually need to and we might end up getting arrested.

However, there are contexts in which nudity is acceptable and removing it is actually counterproductive. One of these exceptions to the rule concerns the study of artwork, as it's difficult to judge the anatomical accuracy of an artist if you can't see what they did.

This was exactly the issue art students at one Florida College had with one of their textbooks.

Late last week, Reddit user ScopeCreepStudio shared some photos that summed up their frustrations while studying at Pensacola Christian College.

Imgur | scopecreepstudio

For those unfamiliar with the paintings shown here, it may be hard to see anything different about this guide to classic art, but even the cover has some clues.

As we dive deeper into its pages, it soon becomes clear that the women on the cover weren't always wearing black dresses.

Imgur | scopecreepstudio

Indeed, any instance of nudity depicted in the original paintings have now been replaced with sharpied-in garments.

Or in the case of of the cherubic boy at the bottom, just a random black box.

A look at the college's mission statement for its arts department offers a clue as to the thought process behind these cover-ups.

Imgur | scopecreepstudio

As The Daily Mail reported, the faculty's purpose is to "equip students to share Christ through the visual arts, music, or dramatic performance."

However, that wasn't what ScopeCreepStudio was hoping to get out of their time there.

They were hoping to become a cartoonist one day, but this was a hard sell to their parents.

Imgur | scopecreepstudio

As they posted on Reddit, the parents were terrified their child would meet "weirdoes" at art school, so PCC's fine arts program was the compromise the family eventually reached.

According to ScopeCreepStudio, all of the art textbooks sold at the school were like this.

Imgur | scopecreepstudio

Although they said buying the uncensored versions elsewhere would get them in trouble, they still did it anyway because the idea of paying full price for a defaced book seemed ridiculous to them.

Unfortunately, no matter what they did, it seemed that the college's values only got in the way of their education.

Imgur | scopecreepstudio

As they put it, cartooning is all about drawing proper figures, but they could never learn to do that if they weren't allowed to see anyone's figures.

This was especially true in the case of their life-drawing classes, which could only feature fully clothed models.

Unfortunately, missing out on what they considered essential lessons in drawing anatomy led their creative drive to diminish.

Imgur | scopecreepstudio

Although they would eventually graduate from the college, ScopeCreepStudio flunked out of the very program they had enrolled for as a result.

Representatives from Pensacola Christian College are aware of this aspect of the school's reputation and said officials have reconsidered their censorship policy in recent years.

Imgur | scopecreepstudio

As The Daily Mail reported, a spokesperson said, "Along with the larger Christian community, we are opposed to pornographic materials, but understand the value of fine art. We are committed to practices which accurately reflect these values."

This means that the college will no longer censor its art textbooks like this.

Imgur | scopecreepstudio

And as far as those who commented on ScopeCreepStudio's post could agree, this decision came in the wake of one particularly extreme breaking point.

After all, the college had actually seen fit to censor the Mona Lisa.

Imgur | scopecreepstudio

Although the woman depicted is already fully clothed, she was apparently still showing too much skin for whoever censored these textbooks, as they filled in anything that looked even remotely like cleavage.

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