Thus far in my life, most of the people I’ve come across have been wearing clothes, so I guess you can say that I’m used to it. On the other hand, even though there is a large contingent of folk out there who believe that it’s a blast to dress up the family pet in human attire, when I view the inevitable snapshot documenting the transformation, I can only opine that the poor animal looks ridiculous. It makes me wonder if, when the first human decided to don a raggedy animal skin to cover his or her nakedness, the rest of the troglodytes didn’t roll on the cave floor convulsed with laughter. “Man, you look ludicrous!” No. Wearing clothing is definitely not natural. But I must admit there have been times when riding the crowded NYC subways that I’ve wished I were ensconced in a couple of extra layers of clothing… maybe even a medieval suit of armor, or, while strolling past the Fire Island nude beach, a brief span of pristine sand littered almost exclusively with the carcasses of superannuated males festooned with bronzed paunches sagging beneath a rat’s nest of snowy white chest hair, that I have chosen to cast my eyes out to the vacant sea rather than subject myself to the ghastly spectacle.
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| Venus of Willendorf |
Ever since Paleolithic times, artists have striven to develop approaches to represent the human body. Humans are pretty unique, the only fur-less and featherless biped I know of, so executing an easily recognizable likeness of one is fairly elementary. It would be difficult to draw a gopher that couldn't be mistaken for an agouti or a sparrow for a wren, but humans are a piece of cake. Be that as it may, the conventions the artist adopts for conveying the human form tells a lot about his or her perception of the human condition and reveals much about the society in which he or she has matured. It is my thinking that making even an abridged and imperfect survey of how the nude has been presented throughout art history has the potential to “expose” much. I'll give it a try.
Art for the ancient Egyptians was created for a variety of reasons, primarily relating to projecting governmental power and endorsing a state religion. Over Egypt's long history, murals and relief paintings served as vehicles to decorate space and document aspects of the population's experiences, both in practice and spiritually. Though the Egyptians produced many eloquent and poignant works of art, their society certainly didn't promote individual expression and originality in the arts. During a history that literally spans thousands of years, very little stylistic development occurred. I suspect that artists were viewed as craftsmen and did not hold a particularly high station within Egyptian society. Once an effective convention was formulated for depicting a being or object, it would be pointless to “reinvent the wheel” and establish new approaches for conveying this information to the viewer.
In depicting the human form, the Egyptian artist sought to present each part of the body in its most recognizable and archetypal configuration. So, the lower body, arms and head were presented in profile, while the eye and upper body were shown frontally. When tackling a nude, artists applied the same conventions, infusing their subject with neither greater import nor erotic energy and executing their portrayals with businesslike efficiency.
Based on my limited observations, I would say that the ancient Egyptians regarded nudity pragmatically. Living in a hot climate compelled people to wear as little clothing as possible. Men are usually portrayed wearing only a short wrap-around skirt and woman a sleeve-like dress that left the breasts exposed. Children wore nothing until reaching their teen years. I include here a painting of the royal family, the children presented naked. (Could you imagine a court portrait of a British aristocratic family displaying the children similarly?) Slaves were not provided with any clothing whatsoever. On the other hand, nude figures rarely appear in Egyptian art. Besides children, the most common individuals to be depicted in the nude are performers: dancers and musicians. This leads me to believe that, though the Egyptians viewed nudity practically, under the right circumstances, they could find it entertaining and arousing.
The art of ancient Greece celebrated the magnificence of Man. Whether analyzing sculpture, drama, poetry, ceramic decoration, architecture or philosophy, we cannot ignore one central fact: that the Greeks held faith in the unlimited potential of humans, both physically and intellectually. And it wasn't sufficient that the Greek citizen excel solely as an athlete or a scholar; ideally, he had to strive for a perfection of both body and mind. This objective reflects the Greeks' desire for balance. Two of their gods, Apollo and Dionysus, came to personify opposing, but equally appreciated, inclinations within the human psyche. While Apollo was the emblem of rationality, order, purity and discretion, Dionysus was the proponent of drunkenness, excess, wantonness, emotionalism and chaos. Though the Greeks were proponents of productive, structured labor, they also recognized the need for release and relaxation. A number of their festivals, intended to honor the gods, promoted that participants surrender to a frenzied, ecstatic mindset and pursue irrational, instinctive inclinations.
In Greek art, this longing for balance is most perfectly exposed in the employment of contrapposto, whereby the individual depicted is shown resting his or her weight on one stiff leg, while the other leg is relaxed and bent at the knee. This very natural pose impacts on every other aspect of the figure: the slope of the hips, the relationship of the shoulders, the tilt of the head. Wisely, the Greeks recognized that a static, symmetrical pose would not convey a sense of visual harmony as perfectly as a naturalistic one.
It was the norm (not the exception) for individuals to be portrayed unclothed in Greek art. How else could the artist pay homage to the majesty of Man? How else could the artist exhibit his understanding of human anatomy and mastery of his craft? The Greeks were comfortable with nudity. Their athletes trained and competed publicly in the nude. During some religious festivals, processions of naked men and women were organized. In fact, the Greeks believed that their ennoblement of the nude was a sign of their sophistication, a trait that separated them from the barbarians on their borders. But let's be clear about this, the Greeks did not believe that imperfect and deformed bodies were suitable for representation in art. Their goal was to express perfection and balance, so only the idealized human physique could facilitate their achieving this aim. Additionally, the Greeks determined that the male body was the most perfect vessel for communicating their faith in human potential.
The Romans shrewdly adopted Greek culture, perhaps their most manifest artistic innovation being the development of a style of realist portraiture which captured objectively, and at times brutally, the features of an individual in a sculptured bust. Many of the greatest works of Greek sculpture with which we are familiar today are known from Roman copies. But with the fall of the Roman Empire, the influence of the Greeks came to an end. This is unusual in that commonly a conquering people (in this case northern barbarian tribes) will embrace the culture of a more sophisticated, though defeated, civilization. Consider the history of China for example. But when Rome fell, the northern tribes were unable to sustain the kind of infrastructure and organization that would permit the production of refined, complex artworks.
During the Middle Ages, art became what I might call “purposeful”. Whether decorating a weapon or a ship, illustrating a book or adorning the interior of a church, art served a practical purpose. At times, it increased the value of or sanctified an object. At other times, it served as an educational tool, communicating a narrative to a largely illiterate population. In playing this role, it no longer mattered if art that represented the human form exhibited a knowledge of human anatomy or an urbane aesthetic as long as it effectively conveyed its intended message.
Once Christianity took hold in Europe, it brought with it the novel idea that pleasure was sinful. The concept of the seven deadly sins is a potent expression of a philosophy which prohibited many natural human proclivities and attributes such as pride, sloth, gluttony and lust. In this new cultural epoch, presenting the image of a naked human being that might inspire impure thoughts and provoke sinful activity was frowned upon. So representations of nudes are rare in Medieval art. On those occasions when artists did depict the unclothed human body, they were compelled to do so by an interest in conveying medical information, illustrating stories from the Bible or chronicling the lives of the saints. Their portrayals were crude, awkward and naive and exhibited no potential to arouse sexual desire in their audience.
During the 14th century, Italy rediscovered Classical culture. This interest in ancient Greece and Rome impacted on nearly every aspect of Italian life. Technical innovation and scientific research, including anatomical study, were encouraged. Latin became the language of the educated elite and the lingua franca of the Catholic church. Scholars and aristocrats latinized their very names. The poetry, philosophy, histories, drama, architecture and literature of the ancients were investigated, and, of course, the visual arts were rejuvenated. As we all know, this period became known as the Renaissance. It occurred over centuries and eventually impacted on nearly every realm in Europe.
Exposure to the art of Greece and Rome led to the development of complex, sophisticated sculpture that portrayed the human body realistically and in anatomical precision while attaining an aesthetic perfection not achieved in Europe throughout the previous millennium. Suddenly, the contrapposto pose reappeared in art. Life-sized figures carved in marble or cast in bronze adorned the interiors and exteriors of churches and government buildings or occupied public squares. Large scale equestrian statues that celebrated rulers and warriors presided over city centers. Often the gods, goddesses and minor deities of the ancients were depicted in this period's art.
Artists of the Renaissance didn't just copy Classical Art; they made numerous innovations of their own. Unlike their Greek and Roman predecessors, Renaissance artists developed techniques that brought two-dimensional representation to an aesthetic level on par with sculpture. Initially, the fresco was the preferred medium of painting, but ultimately, because of their ease of use, illusionistic potential and durability, oil colors became nearly universally adopted. Very importantly, scientific rules for creating the illusion of perspective were established during the Renaissance. In Southern Europe, a style of representation that favored an idealized version of reality was adopted, while in the North art presented a harsher more illusionistic view. Artists chose to revisit themes from Classical literature and mythology but also determined that Biblical stories and contemporary notables were worthy of representation.
With a renewed interest in Classical Art, the nude once again became a viable subject for artists. They studied anatomy and participated in human dissections. Artists strove to understand the mechanics of the human body, and the nude was the perfect vehicle to display their newfound knowledge. At the same time, “Man” in all his physical and intellectual perfection once again became the centerpiece of every form of artistic expression. Paintings and sculpture that celebrated the glory of Man were embraced and financed by society's secular and religious elite – the nude being regarded as a completely acceptable means for expressing this new focus on the individual. In addressing the nude, many artists retained a sensibility very much in line with their Greek and Roman forebears. They employed the nude dispassionately to assert their skill and knowledge while achieving an astounding aesthetic perfection. I would include Michelangelo, Leonardo Da Vinci and Albrecht Dürer among this class of artists. But during this period, we also first see artists presenting the nude as an object of carnal interest. Art now held the power to arouse as well as edify.
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| Sandro Botticelli - The Birth of Venus - 1485 |
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| Michelangelo - David - 1504 |
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| Titian - Venus of Urbino - 1534 |
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| Caravaggio - Amor Vincit Omnia - 1601-02 |
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| Albrecht Durer - Adam and Eve - 1504 |
For centuries afterward, the nude remained an acceptable motif for artistic expression. At times, the mores of society drifted toward the conservative and the display of representations of naked figures was not favored. For instance, even before Michelangelo's death, drapery was being painted over the genitalia of figures included in the Sistine Chapel's Last Judgment. Plaster fig leaves, positioned strategically to assuage the delicate sensibilities of the pious and prudish viewer, were affixed to Classical and contemporary sculpture. But, regardless of changes in mores and taste, the nude continued to be represented in art and art students were expected to study anatomy and work from the nude model. I would say that, for many years following the Renaissance, depictions of nude figures fell into one of two categories: realism (as epitomized by Rembrandt) or ornamentation (as represented by Peter Paul Rubens).
With the arrival of the nineteenth century and the rise of Victorian standards, the nude experienced a subtle transformation. A wave of prudishness and propriety took hold in Europe, making artistic themes that overtly addressed issues relating to sex unacceptable. Nudity could only be condoned if it was considered edifying, so artists justified their potential moral transgressions by relying on a few elevated themes that necessitated the inclusion of nude figures in their work: biblical stories, classical mythology and history. At the same time, the nude was now presented in a manner meant to titillate the viewer. Perhaps, the Victorians, hampered by impracticable standards, sought a welcome, yet surreptitious, release in their art.
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| Francesco Hayez - Susanna at her Bath - 1859 |
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| Lawrence Alma-Tadema - The Tepidarium - 1881 |
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| William-Adolphe Bouguereau - Psyche et L'Amour - 1889 |
As the Victorian era drew to a close, artists, weary of the unrealistic longing for piety, purity and chastity (never even remotely realized), began to openly address themes relating to sexuality. The Symbolists sought to explore the universal leitmotifs that defined human existence, many of which concerned the cycle of life and relations between the sexes. The Decadents went even further. Fueled by a disgust with a civilization which had seemingly reached a moral and cultural impasse, they created an art that expressed a cosmopolitan cynicism and savored sexual perversion. For the first time, European artists employed the nude as a vehicle to flagrantly expose the mechanics of sexual attraction, going so far as to delve into inclinations and proclivities which inspired activity that fell outside the realm of what was perceived as morally acceptable.
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| Edvard Munch - Death of Marat - 1907 |
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| Gustav Klimt - Goldfish - 1901-02 |
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| Ferdinand Hodler - Youth Admired by Women II - 1904 |
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| Aubrey Beardsley - Cinesias Entreating Myrrhina to Coition - 1896 |
At the turn of the twentieth century, with the Modernist revolution taking hold, the nude remained a viable subject for artists, but now the nude, like every other genre of representation, simply became a vehicle for exploring the current “ism” that was being advanced by the artist. To a greater extent than ever before, technique reigned supreme in art. How one painted or sculpted was primarily what a work of art was about. The nude lost the ability to challenge the stuffy standards of a righteous, religious establishment. The artist no longer utilized the nude to startle the viewer out of comfortable complacency, to arouse, to expose and propose practices that trespassed beyond the confines of the norm. If a nude were to offend the tastes of the public, it would do so not on the basis of its subject matter but by how that representation of its subject matter was executed.
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| Henri Matisse - Male Model - 1900 |
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| Pablo Picasso - Nude Combing her Hair - 1906 |
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| Ernst Ludwig Kirchner - Bathers at the Shore - 1913 |
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| Marcel Duchamp - Nude Descending a Staircase, No. 2 - 1912 |
Eventually the avant-garde's passion for technical innovation led to the rejection of all representational imagery, and consequently serious artists no longer considered the nude worthy of exploration. Several decades passed before artists felt provoked to address the nude again as a legitimate subject for examination, and when they re-approached this traditional subject they did so dispassionately... with a new objectivity.
Traditionally, only youthful, physically-fit models were considered worthy of representation as nudes, and many artists continued in this tradition. But something had changed: the nude was now removed from the narrative and was coolly examined as one would a potted plant or a side of beef. During this period, it was permissible to paint representationally as long as the artist did not infuse his or her subject with meaning... that the illusion that subject matter was selected randomly was maintained... that subject matter simply provided the artist with the occasion to mechanically reproduce the visual experience of an external appearance was asserted. The nude provided the opportunity to explore anatomy, the structures that compose the human body, the sinews that hold bones together, the blood vessels that move oxygen throughout the body, the wrinkles that form from the repeated flexing of the epidermis. Commonly, the figure was presented in overall, artificial lighting that was neither mysterious nor dramatic and left no doubt that this work was executed in the antiseptic confines of the studio. The work of Philip Pearlstein and William Beckman comes readily to mind.
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| Philip Pearlstein - Two Models on Wooden Lounge with Swan - 2013 |
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| Philip Pearlstein - Female Model on Chrome Stool, Male Model on Floor - 1979 |
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| William Beckman - Studio Five - 2010-12 |
Andrew Wyeth also produced extremely detailed and carefully executed depictions of nudes. It is thought that he ran afoul of the critics by remaining faithful to representative imagery throughout the most turbulent years of the Modernist revolution in the United States, especially the period during which Abstract Expressionism was becoming established, but his real sin resided in continuing to address subject matter in an empathetic and poetic fashion. I believe that it was his portrayal of a specific kind of light, one that recognizes its own feebleness and transience, that generates an aura of melancholy in his work. This, of course, violated the taboo, incontrovertible at that time, that all serious art must eschew meaning and, above all, sentimentality.
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| Andrew Wyeth - Lovers - 1981 |
Some artists chose to depict nudes that defied the norms of what would traditionally be considered appropriate: the aged, the obese, the imperfect. At times, artists did this to confront or disturb the viewer in a snide or comic manner. But, conversely, other artists wanted to reveal a more inclusive perspective of humanity, one that realistically documented all aspects of the human experience.
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| Alice Neel - Self Portrait - 1980 |
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| Odd Nerdrum - Unarmed Man - 1995 |
Larry Rivers | Double Portrait of Berdie | Whitney Museum of American Art
In my opinion, the most important nudes produced by any contemporary artist were executed by Lucian Freud. He painstakingly recorded every nuance of the human body, often reevaluating tonalities and contours multiple times and, in the process, building up magnificent thick encrustations of paint. His models were required to pose for him for an endless series of sessions, while he scrutinized every facet of their forms. For Freud, painting the nude offered the opportunity to explore the psychological condition of his subject, not only through an examination of facial expression but through the depiction of gesture, posture and attitude. And Freud refuses to omit in his explorations of the human body the flagrant exposure of his subject's genitalia, a feature of equal importance in defining an individual as the arch of an eyebrow, the deportment of the mouth or the contraction of a hand. His nudes are not inviting; they are raw and real, displayed uncomfortably for our inspection.
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| Lucian Freud - Naked Girl - 1966 |
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| Lucian Freud - Naked Girl Asleep II - 1968 |
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| Lucian Freud - Benefits Supervisor Sleeping - 1995 |
And this seems an appropriate place to end my brief survey of how the nude has been represented in western art from pre-Christian times to the present. It is clear that artists have used the nude for a wide variety of purposes: to promote an ideal, to display scientific scholarship, to inspire religious fervor, to titillate and arouse, to defy moral standards, to advocate an avant-garde approach to creation, to assert an existential viewpoint and, on a most elemental level, to explore what it means to be human. The nude is not going to disappear as a viable subject for artistic exploration. Our interest in the nude is hardwired by evolution into our human architecture. Nevertheless, it's hard for me, after seeing Freud's work, to imagine where future artists will take the nude, but it is inevitable that a new perspective will emerge.
As an epilogue to my survey, I will relate a personal experience.
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| That's me wearing a cap in the background. |
I have mentioned in earlier blog entries that I attend weekly life drawing sessions at the Unison Arts Center in New Paltz. At the end of one of our Saturday sessions in January 2019, the proctor announced that an exhibition of nude figurative work was opening that afternoon at Barrett House in Poughkeepsie and that his work would be included in the show. The exhibition was called The Body Beautiful II. As I was crossing the Mid-Hudson Bridge on my ride home, I thought to myself that it would be unforgivable of me not to attend the opening, especially as I would be passing through the heart of Poughkeepsie during my drive anyway. I mean I'm retired now with lots of free time on my hands and certainly can bear a little inconvenience in order to be supportive of the local arts scene. Right? So I made the slight detour to stop by Barrett House.
I wasn't sure what to expect from this show. I'd never attended an exhibition at Barrett House before, but I knew from past experience that the quality of work shown at local venues can vary greatly. As I entered the show's first room, I was pleasantly surprised to find most of the work to be of fairly high caliber – technically competent and often refreshingly inventive. I found myself going back to take second looks at several pieces. The opening was well attended, with a good-sized crowd sharing the first room with me. At some point, a petite, elderly woman made a beeline for me from across the room and began talking to me about the show. She took my arm and led me through the exhibit pointing out specific pieces of interest and introducing me to artists. She seemed to know I was an artist, but, for the life of me, I couldn't figure out how. I mean I am definitely not a local celebrity, and I wasn't carrying a portfolio or wearing a beret. She explained to me that she was one of the curators of the show, and just to make conversation I asked if all of the show's contributors were members of Barrett House. Instead of answering my question, she invited me to submit work for consideration for the next Body Beautiful exhibition and provided me with her email address. At that point, she wandered off to attend to other visitors, and I made my way through a number of rooms on various levels to see the remainder of the show.
The possibility of participating in the Barrett House exhibition the following year actually appealed to me, but I hadn't painted a “serious” nude in many years. I really didn't possess any work that I would consider worthy of submission, so I thought I would have to forfeit this opportunity. However, over a week or two, I contemplated the possibility of executing a large nude before the next exhibition, and, though doing so would mean surmounting some organizational and logistical hurdles, I began to grow enthusiastic about the potential project. I won't bore you with all the details, but over the next month, I made contact with a model I thought ideally suited for this project; and she proved agreeable to participate. I also secured a location at which I could properly distance myself from the model and position my lights as I desired (in order to heighten the contrasts between lights and darks while not obscuring detail). Though it would have been great to paint from life, I don't have the resources to hire a model and rent a space for what would amount to countless sessions. So one afternoon, I took over a hundred photos of the model, some full body, others details... some in natural light, others artificial. I never experimented with the pose - only my positioning, the exposure settings on my camera and the lighting. And, luckily, after reviewing the results of this photoshoot, I was very satisfied with what I had captured. (In truth, even less-than-superb pictures are perfectly serviceable to me since imagination and personal conventions play an equally important role in my creations as the information I gather from photographic documentation.)
I decided I wanted to paint a strongly vertical image of the model, slightly larger than life-size, and prepared a canvas of appropriate dimensions (70”x 30”). I spent several sessions establishing the figure on the canvas and blocking in my underpainting, and then initiated months of sessions developing tonalities, building up layers of paint and laying bare detail. Though I love painting the nuances of flesh, tackling several square feet of it proved a challenge to me. It took me over a year to complete this work.
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| Gerard Wickham - Emily - 2020 |
Even with such a simple subject matter, I was able to explore the dualities and ambiguities that usually excite my interest. When selecting my model, I was careful to choose an individual who, though attractive and fit, was not a paragon of perfection – preferably an ordinary person who would not capture one's attention if passed on the street. Without a doubt, my model is youthful, her body toned from regular exercise, the muscles in her shoulders and abdomen being particularly defined, but her very youthfulness means her body retains the ungainly elasticity of adolescent development. In particular, the attenuated spans of her shins, conspicuous in my painting, are evidence of the strain of a not very distant growth spurt. The model's youth and fitness make my image inviting, even alluring, but there is also something slightly repulsive about it – akin to the cold illustrations of patients displayed in medical journals. The harsh lighting exaggerates the swollen network of veins in the hands and feet. The skeleton proclaims its presence, particularly in the knees, rib cage and collarbones. Tonalities within the epidermis vary in accordance to exposure to sunlight and the chafing of clothing. The rather blasé pose leaves the model's genitalia displayed coolly and casually. Within an unwavering repetition of horizontals, the model is posed, vertical, static, central and symmetrical, but the varying axes defined by the relation of foot to foot, knee to knee, hand to hand and shoulder to shoulder along with the tilt of the head create a sense of movement. And, though this painting is without a doubt a figure study, it also serves as a portrait of a specific individual.
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| Gerard Wickham - Emily (Detail) - 2020 |
This blog entry ends with what may be a lamentable or comic postscript – depending upon your perspective. When I completed this painting after months of effort, I contacted Barrett House to learn more about when the next Body Beautiful exhibition would be held and gather details of how I should make my submission. I was informed that because of the coronavirus pandemic the organization had no plans to schedule another Body Beautiful exhibition at this time. So this large painting now sits in my studio gathering dust. I do show locally from time to time but can't imagine another venue at which exhibiting this work would be considered plausible. Whatever the ultimate outcome of this endeavor, I honestly have no regrets about executing this large nude. I was motivated to tackle a subject matter that would normally intimidate and overwhelm me just on the basis of the complexities involved in organizing its implementation. I am satisfied with the results of my efforts. And, believe me, if my incentive for creating my artwork was about a public response, I would have hung up my palette long ago.
As always, I encourage readers to comment here. If you would prefer to comment privately, you can email me at gerardwickham@gmail.com.
