“There must be something in French milk that makes the land of the coq such a lusty nation,” Waldemar Januszczak remarked, lying face down on a chaise longue, his legs splayed in a pose that recreated François Boucher’s Resting Girl, Louise O’Murphy. Unlike Louise, however, our man was fully clothed, only his shoeless feet showing a glimpse of art critic flesh.
There are few things Januszczak, the Sunday Times writer and one of the last arts presenters standing, won’t do in the pursuit of his craft. Last year’s series on mannerism treated us to a marionette “Waldy” bouncing around the place, and he brought his usual ebullience to Art’s Most Erotic (Sky Arts), shambling endearingly about in his trademark all black, staring intently down the lens, his whole frame twitching with enthusiasm.
Januszczak is a born storyteller, full of cajoling engagement and warm invitation. He is also canny enough to know that with the first subject in this series (art’s most horrific and most satanic are to come), the visuals can do a lot of the heavy lifting, especially when you start in the temples of Khajuraho in India with their array of figures adopting sexual positions one scarcely thought possible.
