Nude not Prude

According to my records this is my 100th article. This is not counting all the little articles I started on my computer but never finished. Those articles I passed over because it just wasn't' coming out the way I intended. Articles on such silly things as depicting world peace with nothing but toothpicks and pipe cleaners. But that's the past. I want to celebrate being naked for art.

Please note that I still stand behind my previous article in which Nudity is often misused in art or mislabeled as art. As I recall, however, I did say that there were instances in which revealing a little bit of the traditionally naughty is appropriate. From "Artists on Art" (ed..Goldwater and Treves, c. 1972, p.198-9) Antonio Canova, dapper gentleman that he is, says "You are searching in nature for some beautiful part of the body and you cannot find it? Do not lose heart. Undress some more persons and you will find it."

Old Mr. Canova goes on to talk about Sculpture and proclaims that the nude is the first language of the "statuary". He also says that tragic figures should be represented by tragically handsome forms, that each figure of a piece of art has a representative in mankind that expresses the feeling of the art. I think that Canova would agree with my previous article in that a little bit of nudity is tossed around everywhere without consequence. Canova might even be furious in that the people that would most likely represent the attitude trying to be portrayed in a piece of art are not being used. The artists that use a nude figure simply for the sake of showing a bit of skin are only finding a willing candidate or the first available 'poser' that catches their fancy.

But I am not here to proselytize on non-nakedness, but rather to seek good use for it. Friends, Romans, Naked People, look not for your clothes, but for your meaning. I have not come to, uh, dress you, but to undress your notions of the body. It is not that I love nakedness less than you, but that I love good art all the more. Would you rather that all figures everywhere be without clothing (don't answer that, guys), or that figures both with and without clothing be full of meaning. As Bosch's inhabitants of Hell suffer I weep, as DuChamp asks as to drink from the fountain I laugh, as Picasso speaks out against the war, I honor, as nakedness pops up in the modern day galleries as art I wonder where the clothes are. There are tears for art, laughs for art, honor for art, and nudes for art. Who here is so base that they would display a nude for no purpose and call it art?! If any, speak, for him have I offended. Who here is so rude that they would not be an artist? If any, speak, for him have I offended. Who here is so vile that they do not love good art? If any, speak, for him have I offended. I do not pause for a reply. (Apologies to Mr. Shakespeare.)

Go To Page: 1 2

Articles in this Topic    Discussions in this Topic