The Nude Figure: A Visual Reference for the Artist

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Patai, Raphael (1990). The Hebrew Goddess (3ded.). Detroit: Wayne State University Press. ISBN 0-8143-2271-9.

Sorabella, Jean (January 2008b). "The Nude in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance". Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art . Retrieved July 15, 2020. When school groups visit museums, there are inevitable questions that teachers or tour leaders must be prepared to answer. The basic advice is to give matter-of-fact answers emphasizing the differences between art and other images, the universality of the human body, and the values and emotions expressed in the works. [15]Christian attitudes cast doubt on the value of the human body, and the Christian emphasis on chastity and celibacy further discouraged depictions of nakedness, even in the few surviving Early Medieval survivals of secular art. Completely unclothed figures are rare in medieval art, the notable exceptions being Adam and Eve as recorded in the Book of Genesis and the damned in Last Judgement scenes anticipating the Sistine Chapel renderings. With these exceptions, the ideal forms of Greco-Roman nudes became largely lost, transformed into symbols of shame and sin, weakness and defenselessness. [27] This was true not only in Western Europe, but also in Byzantine art. [28] Increasingly, Christ was shown largely naked in scenes of his Passion, especially the Crucifixion, [29] and even when glorified in heaven, to allow him to display the wounds his sufferings had involved. The Nursing Madonna and naked "Penitent Mary Magdalene", as well as the infant Jesus, whose penis was sometimes emphasized for theological reasons, are other exceptions with elements of nudity in medieval religious art. Red flags for a model might be requests from students, requests to be photographed, inappropriate language, poses that might threaten their physical or mental comfort,” Grimaldi said. “That does not necessarily mean a sexual pose—it could even mean a pose that the model says would be physically difficult to execute and hold the pose for the necessary time.” Do: Decide what environment is most comfortable for you.

Helen Beard creates colourful and bright artwork in different mediums, from paintings, to needlepoint, to sculptures, depicting close ups of women in explicit, pornographic sexual positions. [75] Her pieces embody women feeling pleasured by their bodies, which contradicts the traditional male gaze nudes of women previously. [75] Nochlin, Linda (1986). "Courbet's "L'origine du monde": The Origin without an Original". October. 37: 76–86. doi: 10.2307/778520. JSTOR 778520. During the Renaissance, interest in the nude body in art was being rekindled after a thousand years. Toward the end of Greco-Roman antiquity, Christian doctrines of celibacy, chastity, and the devaluation of the flesh led to the declining interest of nudes for patrons, and thus for artists. Since the end of the ancient classical period, the unclothed body was only depicted in rare instances like renderings of Adam and Eve. Now, with the rise of Renaissance humanism, Renaissance artists were relishing opportunities to depict the unclothed body. [31] a b Kristeller, Paul (1901). Andrea Mantegna. London: Logmans, Green, and Company. pp.106–107, 140, 143, 233–234. The reinvigoration of classical culture in the Renaissance restored the nude to art. Donatello made two statues of the Biblical hero David, a symbol for the Republic of Florence: his first (in marble, 1408–1409) shows a clothed figure, but his second, probably of the 1440s, is the first freestanding statue of a nude since antiquity, [32] several decades before Michelangelo's massive David (1501–1504). Nudes in Michelangelo's Sistine Chapel ceiling reestablished a tradition of male nudes in depictions of Biblical stories; the subject of the martyrdom of the near-naked Saint Sebastian had already become highly popular. The monumental female nude returned to Western art in 1486 with The Birth of Venus by Sandro Botticelli for the Medici family, who also owned the classical Venus de' Medici, whose pose Botticelli adapted.

In Jill Fields' article "Frontiers in Feminist Art History", Fields examines the feminist art movement and its assessment of female nude imagery. She considers how the image of the female nude was created and how the feminist art history movement attempted to change the way the image of the female nude was represented. Derived from the Renaissance ideal of feminine beauty, the image of the female body was created by men and for a male audience. In paintings like Gustave Courbet's The Origin of the World and François Boucher's Reclining Girl, women are depicted with open legs, implying that they are to be passive and an object to be used. [69] In A. W. Eaton's essay "What's Wrong with the (Female) Nude? A Feminist Perspective on Art and Pornography", she discusses multiple ways in which the art of the female nude objectifies women. She considers how male nudes are both less common and represented as active and heroic, whereas female nudes are significantly more prevalent and represent women as passive, vulnerable, sexual objects. [70] The feminist art history movement has aimed to change the way this image is perceived. The female nude has become less of an icon in Western art since the 1990s, but this decline in importance did not stop members of the feminist art movement from incorporating things like the "central core" image. [71] This way of representing the nude female figure in art was focused on the fact that women were in control of their own image. The central image was focused on vulva-related symbols. By incorporating new images and symbols into the female nude image in Western art, the feminist art history movement continues to try and dismantle the male-dominated art world. [68] Mary Seton Watts, the artist's wife, wrote: 'When painting, Signor [Watts] referred to the studies made in charcoal on brown paper from this most splendid model [Long Mary] - noble in form and in the simplicity and innocence of her nature - a model of whom he often said that, in the flexibility of movement as well as in the magnificence of line, in his experience she had no equal. Many of the studies made from her are now in the possession of the Royal Academy and at the British Museum, while some are preserved in the Sculpture Gallery at Compton. They inspired his work from the first half of the 'sixties to the end of his life. The pictures 'Daphne', 'The Judgement of Paris', 'The Childhood of Zeus' - the Eve trilogy - 'Dawn', 'Olympus on Ida', 'The Wife of Midas', are notable examples of paintings in which he referred to these studies...'. I can’t stress enough, if you are uncomfortable in any way it’s really important for you to say it out loud,” said White. “Good people don’t want you to feel uncomfortable in a work environment, so if they don’t react well to you telling them you feel uncomfortable then they aren’t a good person and you probably are not in a good work environment.” As you can see, the panel depicts a mother and child being protected from a fanged serpent by a nude, bearded, knife-wielding father. However, the trustees of the School did not appreciate the display of male genitalia and would not allow it to be placed above the School's entrance unless Kennington added a loincloth.

Andrea Mantegna (1431–1506) is considered by art historians to have been a pivotal figure in the resurgence of nudes in art because of his love of the ancient classical world and how he incorporated classical principles of form into his creations. [33]In contemporary art, nudes became more experimental as art movements like abstract expressionism and pop art broke down classical aesthetic standards, as well as challenged gender and bodily stereotypes. Oil paint historically has been the ideal medium for depicting the nude. By blending and layering paint, the surface can become more like skin. "Its slow drying time and various degrees of viscosity enable the artist to achieve rich and subtle blends of color and texture, which can suggest transformations from one human substance to another." [87] Smith, Alison; Upstone, Robert (2002). Exposed: the Victorian Nude. New York: Watson-Guptill Publications.

Steinhart, Peter (2004). The Undressed Art: Why We Draw. New York: Alfred A. Knopf. ISBN 1-4000-4184-8– via Internet Archive. a b Eaton, A. W. "What's Wrong with the (Female) Nude? A Feminist Perspective on Art and Pornography." Aesthetics and the Philosophy of Art: The Analytic Tradition, An Anthology (2018): 266. Louis Fratino has redefined the male gaze and how queer men and women are represented in nude art. [79] His pieces explore queer sexuality in both everyday and erotic formats. [80]Mullins, Charlotte (2006). Painting People: Figure Painting Today. New York: D.A.P. ISBN 978-1-933045-38-2. Great American Nude #92 (1967) by Pop Artist Tom Wesselman, as well as Benefits Supervisor Sleeping (1995) by Lucian Freud are also worthy of mention. Both were controversial for contesting traditional artistic standards and ideas of class and popular culture. Some of the women who complained about Close said that they went to his studio with the belief that he would paint their face for a large-scale portrait. They were not expecting to be asked to take off their clothes, they said. Lucian Freud was one of a small group of painters which included Francis Bacon who came to be known as "The School of London", creating figurative work in the 1970s when it was unfashionable. [51]