Khajuraho is a fabulous site and the Indians and other tourists who go there do not consider it to be uncultured and primitive. Some of the most beautiful Indian sculpture can be found there. We live in bizarre times where excessive prudishness among elected officials and voters and an extreme preoccupation in the media with sexual content coincide. A schizophrenic situation.
thank you @kathleenscarboro - there were many more exchanges between myself and that person, which got quite bizarre, to say the least.
Of course, how you paint the gods in the Indian pantheon in India can raise quite a ruckus.
Interesting POV, when one considers Manet's Luncheon on the Grass - a revolutionary depiction of ordinary people in the nude: previously, it was gods and mythological figures that were painted in the nude. Society ladies of days before Manet would let themselves get painted in the nude, but always as goddesses or figures of myth.
The Indians don't mind if you paint the gods, but get very upset if you treat them disrespectfully in your paintings.
what is the definition of "disrespectful" ? Would something in the style of Michelangelo's The Last Judgment be considered disrespectful - depicting biblical figures in the nude?
Maqbool Fida Husain was criticized for exactly that what Renaissance and Neo-classical artists used to paint: Gods and mythological figures in the nude, but not real people.
Here is a link. He didn't paint anything that would shock the West. Also became the most famous painter of India, died at 95. https://www.quackreview.com/art/10-controversial-paintings-of-m-f-husain/