The Secret Museum Analysis

The Secret Museum and the Creation of “Pornography”

As stated by Walter Kendrick in The Secret Museum, the origin of the word pornography goes back to Ancient Greece. The word pornographoi, meaning “whore-painters” was initially borrowed by German art historian C. O Mueller to describe the multitudes of erotic artworks unearthed in the excavation of Pompeii. Mueller coined the term pornographen (pornographers) to describe the creators of said works, and from there the art was classed as “pornography” (Kendrick, 11). In 1864, Webster’s Dictionary made these works the very definition of pornography, describing the word as “licentious painting employed to decorate the walls of rooms sacred to Bacchanalian orgies, examples of which exist in Pompeii” (Kendrick’s, 13). This was one of many attempts to define the word, and to classify the “obscene” works of art that has so suddenly fallen into the laps of art historians.

However in the context of Roman life there would have been nothing “obscene” or “amoral” about these images, and they may even have been used for humorous purposes. The Victorian-era archeologists unearthing these objects thought otherwise, and hid them away out of sight of all but the select few deemed morally and

To someone in modern times, the 19th century concept of what is pornography would seem very outdated (Kendrick, xii). The same may be true for people in the far future looking back on the 21st century. The reverse is also true when one considers the reaction by archeologists in the 1770’s to then-unearthed frescoes at Pompeii depicting erotic subjects. Despite the era, the trouble in defining “pornography” is that it is always approached with the idea in mind that pornography is an actual thing to be defined. In reality, the definition of “pornography” is a representation of the cultural values of those who attempt to define