Hanky Panky panned

Re: It takes a true artist to shock the conscience, Jonathan Kay, May 26

I disagree with Jonathan Kay’s sympathetic assessment of the situation Kent Monkman finds himself in. Although this person is an illustrator of exceptional talent, he also unfortunately exemplifies, with Hanky Panky’s violent, pornographic images of imminent sexual assault, ridiculously justified as a profound statement about “colonialism,” what George Orwell wrote in his essay Benefit of Clergy about Salvador Dali: that what is esthetically right can still be morally degraded. Would the reaction to this painting be so muted if it depicted the imminent sexual assault of an Indigenous person, in front of cheering people, by a “white” person? I think not. Peter Best, Sudbury