The figure has been a prominent subject in artistic practice throughout history. The consistent focus on the human body continues within contemporary painting, and fine art more broadly, and it is still a pinnacle of art education to take part in life drawing classes.
With Rose
Despite moving away from the archaic characteristics of the life drawing class portrayed in Thomas Rowlandson’s A Life Class at the Royal Academy, Somerset House (1811), where a female nude is scrutinised by a room full of men, there is still a reverence around the life drawing class that clings on even in a contemporary era. Despite the laid bare nudity – which in any other contemporary public setting would be shocking and illegal – the seriousness and concentration of pupils in a life drawing class reflects the respect for the practice within artistic practice.
At its origins in Renaissance painting, life drawing was seen as the ultimate tool for understanding the human anatomy, with some artists even painting their figures nude, before adding clothes or swathes of fabric to the bodies; treating the figure as one would in real life, a three-dimensional being with layers and structure.
Goddess
Although contemporary painting has evolved through movements like cubism, expressionism and postmodernism, the figure is still a prominent subject in contemporary painting and it is evident the influence classical nude painting, and individual life drawing experience has had on the works of contemporary figurative artists.
As such, in my exploration of the presentation of the body – particularly in publicly available contexts – it felt only logical to examine the classical painted nude in the same way that I have approached social media imagery, personal photographs, and imagery from pornography and mass media. This week in the studio I have taken inspiration from a selection of painted female nudes and used imagery of these paintings to create 4 new works, through my usual cropping, stylising and painting process.
Bath
The first of these works was taken from a painting titled Reclining Nude with Rose, with an unknown author and little recognisability, I felt it would be perfect to work with alongside imagery from other sources, rather than a ‘famous’ nude like Botticelli’sThe Birth of Venus (c.1480). I contemplated a number of compositional crops before settling on the lower torso and legs of the figure for my work and used exaggerated blue and orange tones for the painting.
My second study was taken from Nude Goddess With Bird, a 20thcentury painting that mimics the style of Renaissance artists and the classical Greek nude. I found this piece particularly interesting for its concealment of the female genitalia. The folds of cloth covering the body partially were aesthetically intriguing, particularly when zoomed in and cropped, so this way the area I decided to focus on, keeping a relatively accurate – if exaggerated – colour palette and working wet on wet to create merging brush strokes and blended colours.
Odalisque
The third painting is without a doubt my favourite of the four works. Just as above I cropped a larger classical painting and focused on a composition including a gap between the torso and arm of the subject, which I felt was a particularly interesting frame created within the painting. This time, I used an extremely altered palette, exaggerating the blue and purple tones in the skin and using deep red and pinks for the background and draped fabric. Once again a wet on wet approach made the blending and layering process really interesting and I am extremely pleased with the result.
Lastly – and still a work in progress – is a crop from Francois Boucher’s The Odalisque (1745). I have always found this painting particularly fascinating for its portrayal or a seemingly normal body, unlike the unrealistically muscular men of the Greek and Roman classical paintings or the perfectly proportioned female nudes of the Renaissance, the painting shows the exposed buttocks of the model in a realistic – and no necessarily flattering by today’s beauty standards – pose. I decided that for this reason, the butt and legs would be the focus of this painting and I would reflect the blue tones of the background and the paleness of the skin with pinks and blue colours. As you can see this work is only just beginning, but keep your eyes peeled for it to be revealed on my social media upon completion!
Overall, I have found this brief examination and repositioning of the classical painted nude extremely interesting, and it has once again reiterated the importance of context when dealing with public nudity and also the prevalence of the painted female nude, both throughout history and today.