Belgian museums urge Facebook to allow artistic nudes in advertising after Rubens falls foul of censors

Facebook has been urged to consider allowing more artistic nudity on its platform by a consortium of Belgian museums who object to the "censorship" of works by the likes of Flemish master Peter Paul Rubens.

The museums, led by the Flemish Tourist Board, claim the social media giant's strict advertising rules have made it impossible to promote one of Flanders’ greatest artists.

An advert featuring Rubens' The Descent from the Cross, which depicts Jesus naked apart from a loincloth, was among posts which were removed.

“We have noticed that Facebook consistently rejects works of art by our beloved Peter Paul Rubens,” the group wrote in an open letter to Mark Zuckerberg, before offering to meet the Facebook boss for a Belgian beer if he changes the rules to allow nude works to be seen in all their glory.

“Indecent. That is the word used to describe the breasts, buttocks and cherubs of Peter Paul Rubens. Not by us but by you,” the open letter reads "Even though we secretly have to laugh about it, your cultural censorship is making life rather difficult for us".

The letter goes on to claim that Antwerp-based Rubens, who died in 1640, aged 62, would have had “an extraordinary number of followers on Facebook” if he were alive today and beseeches the US social media giant to find a way to allow the Flemish Tourist Board to reach out to art lovers across the world.

The Tourist Board, which has a target of attracting 3 million visitors by 2020, shot a tongue-in-cheek online video of security guards stopping museum visitors with social media accounts from looking at any of the many art treasures in Belgium’s Dutch-speaking region. 

However, it appears that there may be  a brush of exaggeration in the claims of censorship. It is possible to post artistic nudes on Facebook but if nudes are part of an advert, they fall under stricter rules. 

The ‘censored’ works by the likes of Rubens, who used classical nudes as a metaphor for the relative decadence of his era, were adverts for the region and its museums.  

The board’s CEO Peter De Wilde told Flemish television, “We are getting backing from abroad and almost all museums that we have contacted are only too willing to back us”.

In March, Facebook apologised for censoring the nude breasts of the tricolore-waving woman in Eugene Delacroix’s iconic 1830 painting “Liberty leading the People”, a cherished work of art which was used to advertise a play.