In today's society artist feel that they should have free reign that would entitle them to create anything they feel necessary and depict whatever they desire without any regard to the content, imagery, or morality of their work. They believe it would hinder their work to have limitations placed upon them and their artwork. They hold the opinion that they should be able to express themselves in anyway, and anywhere. In my opinion artists have lost the ability and the want to create things pleasing to the eye, mind, and soul. Artists of this day and age feel that they are above the law because what they create is done all for the sake of art. Artists seem to have no ethic when it comes to their work. They create thing simply for the reaction. When commissioned to create a piece of art they get upset when limits are put on them. They are given a grant to create a piece of art and guidelines to follow and they become upset when they are told that they did not meet the guidelines because they chose to go off on their own path of expression. Not only do standards come with money but as citizens we all have standards to live by. The United States has law that prohibits certain content from being displayed in public, but some artist only seem intent to push the envelope when it comes to these laws.
Just as censorship and the creation of art viewed as obscene exist today, it existed in the past. Some felt it was necessary to prevent the viewing of obscene art because even thought it had artistic value, the obscene content exceeded the artistic value. In the middle of the eighteenth century, the king of Naples initiated an excavation of the ancient city of Pompeii, Rome. In 1748, the first intact fresco and a skeleton were discovered and it became clear that this was a remarkable archaeological site, unlike any previously unearthed remains of the ancient world (Douzinas and Nead 203).