A recent mural by the enigmatic street artist Banksy has joined centuries of controversial artworks that have fallen victim to legal censorship and erasure. The provocative piece, which appeared on London's Royal Courts of Justice on September 7, depicted a judge in traditional wig and gown brutally attacking a prone protester with his gavel, creating blood splatters that formed the message on the victim's blank placard. Within three days, authorities had partially destroyed the satirical work, covering it with black plastic sheets and steel barriers.
Banksy's controversial mural echoes artistic precedents dating back more than four and a half centuries. The Renaissance sculptor Jean de Boulogne, known as Giambologna, created a marble sculpture portraying the biblical scene where Old Testament judge Samson "slew a thousand men" with the "jawbone of an ass." Both works depict the brutal administration of justice, though separated by centuries of art history.
The Metropolitan Police quickly classified Banksy's work as "criminal damage," potentially violating the Criminal Damage Act of 1971. The HM Courts & Tribunals Service deployed guards to protect the barricaded area, leaving only a ghostly trace of the original stenciled image on the Queen's building wall. This rapid censorship represents just the latest chapter in art history's ongoing struggle between creative expression and legal authority.
Michelangelo's monumental fresco "The Last Judgment" in the Vatican's Sistine Chapel provides perhaps the most famous example of artistic censorship. Completed in 1541, the masterpiece depicts the dynamic rise and fall of souls during Christ's Second Coming. Despite its religious subject matter, the Council of Trent declared in December 1563 that the work violated prohibitions against art "adorned with beauty exciting to lust." Critics particularly objected to the portrayal of naked St. Catherine of Alexandria, who appears to suggestively move away from St. Blaise in the fresco's bottom right section.
To comply with the new ban on "lasciviousness" in art, Italian Mannerist Daniele da Volterra was commissioned to add loincloths and vestments to Michelangelo's nude figures. This earned him the nickname "Il Braghettone," meaning "the breeches maker." While 1980s and 1990s restoration efforts removed some later additions, the majority of Volterra's 16th-century "corrections" remain visible today, creating a permanent disfigurement of Michelangelo's original vision.
Other artworks faced far more destructive fates than Michelangelo's modified masterpiece. In 1566, Protestant iconoclasts stormed through the Low Countries and attacked Antwerp's cathedral, permanently mutilating Frans Floris's grand altarpiece "The Fall of the Rebel Angels." The fantastical work, painted just 12 years earlier, showed a saint casting out grotesque demons. Reformers, convinced the triptych violated new civic laws against superstition and idolatry, ripped the wings from their hinges and destroyed the two side panels. Only the central section, relatively free of offending iconography, survived the demolition and was rehung 20 years later when Catholic rule returned.
Some controversial works managed to survive legal persecution with minimal damage. Francisco de Goya's revolutionary pair of paintings known as "The Two Majas," created between 1797 and 1800, depicted the same reclining woman in mirroring poses – one nude, the other clothed. The Inquisition seized these works in 1815 for allegedly breaking laws of decency and public morality. The paintings were particularly scandalous for their sensual portrayal of a contemporary woman gazing directly at viewers, unconnected to any mythological or religious narrative.
After Spanish Prime Minister Manuel Godoy, who owned the paintings, was overthrown in 1808, investigators opened a case into his possession of the scandalous portraits. Goya was summoned to defend himself, though records of his testimony have not survived. While the court painter escaped punishment due to his high position, his works remained confiscated and hidden from public view until 1836, eventually reaching the Prado Museum in 1901.
Not all 19th-century artists and artworks enjoyed such fortunate outcomes. French artist Honoré Daumier faced imprisonment for his incendiary lithograph "Gargantua," published in the satirical journal La Caricature. Based on a Rabelais character, the work portrayed King Louis-Philippe as a gluttonous giant consuming his poor subjects' wealth and resources. The devastatingly popular image enraged the French government, which swiftly pursued both artist and artwork for inciting "hatred of the King."
Daumier was arrested and sentenced to six months in prison for violating anti-sedition laws. Authorities destroyed the very stone from which the lithograph was printed, preventing further distribution of the offending image. Despite government suppression efforts, copies from La Caricature's first run survived, and cheap woodcuts fashioned from the design kept the image in secret circulation among the public.
The fate of Banksy's latest controversial work remains uncertain. Whether the mysterious artist will face legal pursuit similar to Daumier's imprisonment, or if the mural's partial erasure will instead inscribe it more permanently in cultural consciousness, is yet to be determined. Throughout art history, the absence of censored works has often proven more enduring and powerful than their original presence, creating lasting symbols of the ongoing tension between artistic expression and legal authority.
