The piece and its original position in Tralfagar Square generated controversy. Some dismissed it as a manifestation of political correctness. Such an accusation ascribes to the piece a political agenda by intuiting the author’s intent while not quite conceding that the mere representation of a body can make a potent sociopolitical comment. Assigning the concept of political correctness to a statue in this way seems to be a way of avoiding discussion of the object itself: it would be very difficult, or discomfiting, to explain why this sculpture is less beautiful or less erotic than a marble statue of a pregnant woman without phocomelia, without explaining the obvious differences in Alison Lapper’s body.

Indeed, the piece is unavoidably about what we choose to look at and what we choose to avert our eyes from; what we first see when we look at a body, and what we might only see with further scrutiny, and eventually what we see with familiarity. The overtly political concerns may well be put to rest when the piece is moved out of the centre of London and into a museum somewhere: then, the context may change, and this piece will be better compared to the other famous models without fully formed arms, like the Hermes of Andros or, say, Venus de Milo. In any case, this piece obtains its power less from its controversy than its imposing mass and the elegant, dignified representation of its subject.