Pissing Figures 1280-2014

First introducing the Manneken Pis—the iconic little boy whose stream of urine supplies water to this famous fountain and is also the logo for a Belgian beer company—the author takes the reader through a semi-scatological maze of cultural history. The earliest example is a fresco scene located directly above Cimabue’s Crucifixion from around 1280 at the Basilica of Saint Francis of Assisi, in which Lebensztejn’s careful eye locates an angel behind a pillar who looks like he is about to urinate through a hole in his garment. He continues to navigate expertly through cultural twists and turns, stopping to discuss Pier Paolo Pasolini’s 1968 film Teorema, for example, and Marlene Dumas’s 1996–1997 homage to Rembrandt’s pissing woman. At every moment, Lebensztejn’s prose is lively, his thinking dynamic, and his subject matter entertaining.