nude art by Evgenia Bazhenova

nude art

The subject of nude art has long been in most societies. Nude art is still, however, considered as taboo or a controversial topic despite its artistic value. Though most cultures are generally becoming adaptable and appreciative of this particular form of art, one can say that the holistic acceptance of nude art in most societies has yet to be established. The key to this acceptance is by making people understand what nude art really is all about.

Nude Arts History Nude art has been around for so long a time, as long as the early civilizations of Greek and Egypt. Nude art back then was established as a form of appreciation of the human body. Although the same definition can be said nowadays with regard to nude art, the art has been so well extended that it not only includes the study of the human body in general but also its specific body parts. The study of nude art was all the more furthered, thanks to the Renaissance and Baroque periods both periods in time that dealt with the discovery of human nature.

With this discovery came about the high importance accorded to nude art. Until now, nude art is widely practiced, especially in generally liberal countries such as American and European nations. In some countries, nude art is not as accepted but is on its way to being popularly established. Real Nude Art However, nude art has been debated upon by many people because of its controversial nature. After all, nudity is commonly associated with pornography.

Real nude art, however, is anything but pornography. In fact, most nude art scholars and critics generally define nude art as a piece of art that provokes emotional sensuality not erotic sensuality. Furthermore, nude art refers to the study of the human body and its specific parts not of the nude person portrayed in the art. The nude person is merely a representation on behalf of humanity in general. Also, real nude art prefers human in its most raw form. As much as possible, a nude artist would do away with embellishments which are deemed as mere accessories to the beauty of the human body.

These accessories do not really beautify the human body in the process of depicting art. Rather, it sullies the beauty of the human nature. For some nude artists, however, this is perfectly acceptable. Tattoos are also accepted in special cases, depending on the nude artists vision of nude art. To be naked is to be deprived of our clothes, and the word implies some of the embarrassment most of us feel in that condition. The word 'nude,' on the other hand, carries, in educated usage, no uncomfortable overtone. The vague image it projects into the mind is not of a huddled and defenseless body, but of a balanced, prosperous, and confident body: the body re-formed.To look at the naked body of a stranger is both privileged and peculiar.

The tradition of life drawing features the unclothed figure in a room filled with clothed observers. Most drawing instructors ignore the tangle of political, sensual, erotic, and critical issues created by this scenario. The unspoken expectation is that art students observe the naked body scientifically and objectively, without eroticism or other feelings.

Life drawing is one of the few areas of art making left that depends on the myth of observation. To suppress the erotic and to maintain control and propriety in this unusual situation, the nude and the naked have been separated. In the computer class, the model was nude, because of a compleset of agreements between the model, the classroom, and the society. The people peeping through the door were not party to that agreement and to them she was naked.

Professors using the nude follow a tightly scripted set of rules, because they want to avoid potentially embarrassing situations, but because the forms and philosophy of life drawing have not changed much since the nineteenth century. Everyone is familiar with the "Matisse" set-up, for example. The female model is posed on an ancient over-stuffed chair surrounded by patterned draperies and dressed in a large floppy hat and high-heeled slippers. For the male models there is the action pose, with the model holding a rope or pole or standing on a ladder.

As artists and educators, we must reexamine the implications of this phenomenon, and look at how we can strategize and perhaps reconstruct and rerepresent the figure.