Fine art is respectable, sex is not. So what happens when these worlds collide in the form of the reclining nude? From 16th century Venetian painters to modern-day feminist artists, Frances Borzello traces the history of the genre
*It may just be that, nudity is pure without the awarness of being nude and nakedness is being aware of it’s state, hence the uneasyness…
Sort of like Adam and eve.. who werent aware of their state but after the sin.. they became aware…
this is the first emotion felt by man.. the guilt and the condemnation.. which even today we carry along.. every moment of our lives..
* the guardian UK
The words reclining nude conjure up a vision of voluptuous femininity, a bed with crumpled sheets, and a painter, mind focused, brush alert, making his mark on the canvas. All very sexual, really. Which has always been the problem. Fine art, as we know, is respectable. Sex is not. The reclining nude is where they meet. One of the most fascinating of fine art’s spectator sports is watching the rude removed from the nude.
A mark of the educated art lover is the ability to assess a reclining nude in artistic terms alone. From this perspective, the nude is solely a matter of subtle flesh tones, sophisticated composition, learned references to other reclining nudes, a flurry of knowing points about the goddess she is meant to represent.
Kenneth Clark, in his book The Nude, published in 1956, puts it with perfection: “To be naked is to be deprived of our clothes and the word implies some of the embarrassment which 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 defenceless body, but of a balanced, prosperous and confident body: the body re-formed.”
The first step in ridding the nude of Clark’s “uncomfortable overtone” is to turn it into an artistic genre, alongside landscape, portraiture and still life. As a genre, it can be judged by comparison with others of its type. In that way, a knowledgable connoisseurship based on art and nothing else can be brought into play.
I don’t think there are many qualified people here who can actually appreciate nudity as a form of art!
Unfortunately most of us are limited in our views. We may be able to distinguish between what looks beautiful and what looks ugly, but that too is a perspective of every individual.
Now, looking and observing art that consists of nude forms, our humble mind and wandering spirit can only decipher it as crudity.
Unfortunately pondering upon a subject so distracting as this can bring about the negative emotions you talked about earlier!
Therefore, I rather stay away because I'm not an experienced critic. However, someone more qualified in the fine arts can offer valuable input without.
SindSagar bhaiyaa.. before the sin... they werent aware of their state, so it didnt matter.. thats exactly what nude art portrays.. that pure innocence.. but the general audience cant always grasp it..
which is totally ok cose, we are guilty of the sin and now in remorse..
A beautiful rose inspires an artist and a poet they get intoxicated by the beauty and the smell, But when a goat passes by it eat the whole branch with out knowing the diffrence of flower and the thorn, So what we see on the canvas is all depend on each person,
Its interesting to see how people see SIN, and Guilt and other thing in this subject.
