First of 3 series
In retrospect, I
thought of William Blake who believed that a naked woman is the most brilliant
work of God. Michelangelo found a foot to be nobler than a shoe. Edgar Degas
found them all the more interesting in a tub. Robert Henri thought respect for
the nude would eliminate shame. Auguste Rodin named it an eternal form and a
joy to all the ages, the body expressing the spirit that envelopes it and for
those who can see, the NUDE offers the richest meaning.
Like an echo from
some primitive rite, rendering nudity is a time-honored craft and one of the
few acceptable forms of public nakedness. Even medical doctors do not have the
privilege of staring for hours. Whether old or young, male or female, plain or
beautiful, when stripped of its fashions, the human body has integrity. You
feel the energy within; the brush begins to speak in body language.
A nude woman is
treated as a kind of illuminated landscape; hills and valleys, a complex puzzle
of beauty and practicality and form that follows function. It's the exercise of
all exercises, light and shadow, chiaroscuro--the sphere, the cone, the
cylinder.
Kenneth Clark opens
his classic study, The Nude: A Study in Ideal Form, pointed out that: "in
the greatest age of painting, the nude inspired the greatest works; and even
when it ceased to be a compulsive subject it held its position as an academic
exercise and a demonstration of mastery".
It did so, he
explains because the nude as a conceptual and artistic category always involved
the notion of an ideal abstracted from the reality we confront in our everyday
lives. As such, we may add, the nude in art plays a role similar to that of the
hero in epic: it provides the means and occasion to figure forth what a
particular society takes to be greatest excellence.
The nude, therefore,
"is not the subject of art, but a form of art", in part because
"The body is not
one of those subjects which can be made into art by direct transcription — like
a tiger or a snowy landscape. . . . We do not wish to imitate; we wish to
perfect" — an idea, like so many others, perhaps first formulated by
Aristotle "with his usual deceptive simplicity. ’Art,' he says, 'completes
what nature cannot bring to a finish.
The artist gives us
knowledge of nature's unrealized ends.' A great many assumptions underlie this
statement, the chief of which is that everything has an ideal form of which the
phenomena of experience are more or less corrupted replicas. . . . Every time
we criticize a figure, saying that a neck is too long, hips are too wide or
breasts too small, we are admitting, in quite concrete terms, the existence of
ideal beauty".
“The nude” is an
important facet of the artistic tradition dating back to ancient times, making
the unclothed figure unavoidable in a comprehensive consideration of art.
Nudity can be
discussed in terms of the reasons artists choose to portray the human body or
form without clothing:
1. The human form is
beautiful, making it an ideal subject for art.
2. The human body can
be expressive. It may be used to express a full range of emotions and feelings
to which the viewers can relate. Viewers might be encouraged to recreate the
subject’s pose in hopes of better understanding the expressive qualities of the
work, perhaps taking their minds off the fact that the subject is unclothed. A
possible subject for discussion, too, is the difference between “nudity” and
“nakedness.”
3. The human form is
part of the commonality which holds the human race together.
It is familiar to all
peoples regardless of background, sex, education, culture, or ethnic identity.
Thus, artists often use the human form in their art to express universal truths
and to address those ideas or concepts which bind all human beings together.
4. Because of our
familiarity with the human form, artists can use the human form to symbolize
human values, e.g., a pregnant woman or nursing mother often symbolizes
innocence. Also, artists can use distortion of the body or simplification of
human form to achieve an emotional recognition and intellectual response to the
artwork from the viewer because of our immediate identification with the human
form.
5. The human body
contains variations of all geometric shapes such as the cylinder, the sphere,
the cone, the cube, etc., making it an ideal subject for exercises in rendering
and demonstrating artistic ability and creativity. The body is viewed as a
design form of shapes, highlights, and shadows.
6. The human body is
anatomically consistent, which makes it a good subject to represent realistically.
Throughout history artists have gone to great lengths, including dissection, to
examine human anatomy to achieve artistic accuracy.
LIST OF ARTISTS/MOVEMENTS:
ACADEMIC ART:
SCHEFFER, Ary •
1795-1858 Dutch/French Painter
ACADEMIC CLASSICISM:
AMAURY DUVAL,
Eugene-Emmanuel
• 1808-1885 French
Painter
BAUDRY, Paul
• 1828-1886 French
Painter
BOLDINI, Giovanni
• 1842-1931 Italian
Painter
BOUGUEREAU,
William-Adolphe
• 1825-1905 French
Painter
BOUTIBONNE, Charles
Edward
• 1816-1897 French
Painter
CABANEL, Alexandre
• 1823-1889 French
Painter
COUTURE, Thomas
• 1815-1879 French
Painter
DEBAT PONSAN, Edouard
Bernard
• 1847-1913 French
Painter
FIRMIN GIRARD,
Marie-François
• 1838-1921 French
Painter
GERVEX, Henri
• 1852-1929 French
Painter
GLAIZE, Auguste
• 1807-1893 French
Painter
GLEYRE, Charles
• 1808-1874 Swiss
Painter
JAMIN, Paul
• 1853-1903 French
Painter
LEFEBVRE, Jules-Joseph
• 1836-1911 French
Painter
LEVY, Emile
• 1826-1890 French
Painter
ART DECO:
de LEMPICKA, Tamara
• 1898-1980
Polish/American Painter
ART NOVEAU:
MOSER, Koloman
• 1868-1918 Austrian
Painter – Designer
ART NOUVEAU/NABIS
MAILLOL, Aristide
• 1861-1944 French
Sculptor
BAROQUE:
BERNINI, Gian Lorenzo
• 1598-1680 Italian
Painter, Sculptor and Architect
CAGNACCI, Guido
• 1601-1681 Italian
Painter
CARAVAGGIO), Caravaggio
(Michelangelo Merisi da
• ca.1571-1610 Italian
Painter
CARRACCI, Agostino
• 1557-1602 Italian
Painter
CARRACCI, Annibale
• 1560-1609 Italian
Painter
de RIBERA ( SPAGNOLETTO
), Jusepe
• 1591-1652
Spanish/Italian Painter
DOMENICHINO (Domenico Zampieri)
• 1581-1641 Italian
Painter
GENTILESCHI, Orazio
• ca.1563-1639 Italian
Painter
GIORDANO, Luca
• 1632-1705 Italian
Painter
GUERCINO (Giovanni
Francesco Barbieri)
• 1591-1666 Italian
Painter
LISS, Johann
• ca.1597-1631 German
Painter
POUSSIN, Nicolas
• 1594-1665 French
Painte
REMBRANDT van Rijn
• 1606-1669 Dutch
Painter and Engraver
RENI, Guido
• 1575-1642 Italian
Painter
RUBENS, Peter Paul
• 1577-1640 Flemish
Painter
SARACENI, Carlo
• 1579-1620 Italian
Painter
VAN DYCK, Sir Anthony
• 1599-1641 Flemish
Painter
VELÁZQUEZ (or VELÁSQUEZ),
Diego
• 1599-1660 Spanish
Painter
CONCRETISM:
CAROLRAMA (Olga Carol Rama)
• born 1918- Italian
Painter
CONTEMPORARY REALISM:
WYETH, Andrew
• 1917-2009 American
Painter
CUBISM:
LEGER, Fernand
• 1881-1955 French
Painter
PICASSO, Pablo
• 1881-1973 Spanish
Painter and Sculptor
DADA/SURREALISM:
BALTHUS
• 1908-2001 French
Painter
DUCHAMP, Marcel
• 1887-1968
French/American Conceptual Artist
ERNST, Max
• 1891-1976
German/French Painter
EARLY RENAISSANCE:
BOTTICELLI, Sandro
• 1445-1510 Italian
Painter
della QUERCIA, Jacopo
• ca.1371-1438 Italian
Sculptor
DONATELLO
• 1386-1466 Italian
Sculptor
GIOTTO (Giotto di Bondone)
• 1267-1337 Italian
Painter
MASACCIO (Tommaso di Ser
Giovanni Cassai)
• 1401-1428 Italian
Painter
PERUGINO (Pietro Vannucci),
Pietro
• ca.1445-1523 Italian
Painter
POLLAIOLO, Antonio
• ca.1432-1498 Italian
Painter and Sculptor
RIZZO, Antonio
• active 1465-1499-
Italian Sculptor
VENEZIANO, Domenico
• ca.1405-1461 Italian
Painter
