Michelangelo's DavidI stumbled upon a very good blog post yesterday by one of my readers, Valentino Valente, a photographer of male nudes. Here's the post. In it, he touches on many issues, namely the taboo of the male nude... as he points out, when we think of nudes, we tend to think of females only, as males are considered pornographic, particularly when shown with frontal nudity. I guess this strikes a chord with me since when I first started out painting nudes, I thought the same thing, but also in the sense that perhaps the prevalence of female nudes in art is because most artists in the past were males. Therefore, they chose to paint females. Also, the female form is supple and sensuous and because of the roundness of form, quite naturally easy to represent, whereas males tend to have more angles, muscles, and length (which makes it interesting in a completely different way, but more difficult to capture in painting). Actually, there was a painting I saw once... can't remember where, I want to say at the Honolulu Academy, but I'm not certain... that depicts a life drawing session with the model and artists in the room. The nude had a cloth sack over her head to hide her identity. Apparently this was the practice of the day; it was considered improper to be nude... yet as far as I can tell, there is nothing like painting from life. Yet, to have nudes exhibited at all these days is an impossibility. No public place here will touch them, often shows specifically prohibit them, in particular frontal nudity, both male and female. But, again, this may be a consequence of geography... for instance, no one would consider Michelangelo's David to be pornographic.
Interesting post, Elaine. Thanks for sharing this with everyone.
ReplyDeleteA very interesting insight. Of course a European audience would not have the same problem I think. Although the growth of political correctness in the place of public morality, especially in the UK, is threatening the artist's freedom.
ReplyDeleteI am very happy my dearest friend you wrote in this post about my meaning of the male nude and the taboo about it.
ReplyDeleteI am also proud you have written a post sharing ideas with me .
yours sincerely
Valentino
Male nudity is not depicted for males not enjoying their nakedness. I prefer to remain naked when alone and can afford it being not caught. This has resulted my seeing dreams of my own nakedness -
ReplyDeletehttp://rambansal-the-theosoph.blogspot.com/2009/09/dreams-i-often-see.html
True, a European audience does not see the same thing. Travel shows often edit out nude paintings and sculptures for the American audience. This era of political correctness and public morality is definitely stifling.
ReplyDeleteWith the rediscovery of Ancient Greek learning during the renaissance there was a positive plethora of artworks depicting nudity.In the case of the female form it was often a disguised representation of the pre-christian mother goddess.
ReplyDeleteTo avoid the Inquisition the subject matter was often from Classical history and also disguised the artists Esoteric leanings.
Where I'm living (Italy, Genoa) in art academy or fine art high school it's impossible to find male models to be drawn. That's weird, because artist's anatomy texts (every single book I ever have seen) teach you male anatomy. Female anatomy often is merely mentioned in this texts, as an anomaly, a spin off of male. In fine arts, female nudity was a taboo until few century ago. Artists who wanted to rapresent women had troubles. The Maya desnuda was a scandal. So, I'm wondering why aspirant artists have, in a country as mine, to study Leonardo's male proportions and then never see them for real. That's absurd also because - and this is a point you touched - most of students are girls, so they well know how girls are made but not how male are. I think this change of mind it's possible cause law that say it's forbidden to show genitals. It's easy move around this with woman's body (depilation etc.). It's hard to do with man's body. And then I think it's hard for women to get rights to be artists. Someone have the shivers thinking about it, still today. Yes, we're living in XXI century, but the idea that a woman can see a male nude and paint it... I imagine frighten parents to say: "no, not my little girl!" :D You agree?
ReplyDeleteThis is really curious. I was beginning to think that this aversion to nudes might be a consequence of where I lived. Europe has always seemed more liberal on that front. I was just about to do a post about anatomy and art... there is an interesting history behind all of this. Thanks Barbara for the comment. I'll get to it as soon as I can!
ReplyDeleteYou're welcome! :) I'm looking forward your next post about arts and nudity.
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