The Nude Kenneth Clark Analysis

During the Renaissance period, sexuality impacted how people, both men and women, were treated and how they behaved. The lives of women were completely defined by the ideals of sexuality that were enforced during that time. Every area of a woman’s life from birth was influenced by outside influences rather than by they themselves. It took a particular type of woman to break past the clearly defined description of what a “Renaissance woman” should be.

Nude figures have been featured in art works since around 30 to 25,000 B.C. And throughout the history of art, we can see a lot of artists being inspired and influenced by great talents before them, in one way or another they would carry the style or ideas of those previous artists into their own art and create new masterpieces. One particular example is Édouard Manet’s Olympia from the Realism period, and Yasumasa Morimura’s Futago. The two paintings share great similarities in their composition, but the content and purpose of the paintings, and style wise the two pieces are very different.

This image of Lucretia is not that of some mythological or religious origin, say, of a venus, for example, part of whose appeal is the depiction of nudity without social repercussion. With respect to the time which bore this painting, it is not unlikely that this inclination to experiment with the female nude was in part sublimated by means of this historical subject matter, however, so say that Lucretia’s nudity is illustrated only on account of what would amount to the privilege of moral impunity is perhaps too simple an explanation. It seems much more reasonable to posit that Lucretia’s own nudity, especially in conjunction with her opulent, indeed, what is surely very expensive clothing (other depictions of Lucretia typically omit the inclusion of clothes altogether), is employed by Cleve to highlight Lucretia’s shame—amid her wealth and regal lifestyle, her clothes have been cleaved open, and she had been irrevocable hurt and humiliated. Whether intended by the artist, this awkward parting of Lucretia’s garments over her left shoulder and down through her abdomen adds greatly to the desolation and pity associated with her historical figure. Ultimately, this compositional decision serves to augment the paintings emotional

As you begin Beauty (Re) discovers the Male Body your read of author Susan Bordo spilling her morning coffee over a shockingly sexual advisement of a nude man. Initially, I rolled my eyes and settled in assuming, I was going to read about the tragedy of how men are now being objectified and exposed in adverting like women. As I flip through the pages looking at the scantily clad images I’m not really shocked; this essay was written fifteen years ago; I see these kinds of images going to the mall. What was shocking, however, was how Bordo a published, woman philosopher born in 1947 wrote about these images. I felt myself blush as I read “it seems slightly erect, or perhaps that’s his nonerect size, either way, there’s a substantial presence

In the Renaissance period women are almost invariably shown as completely passive and as an object for contemplation. The reclining female nude in the Renaissance raises questions of the male gaze more often than any other artistic stereotype. Female nudes were only an open acknowledgement of not only male desire but also the right males had to express that desire. A woman’s feelings when looking at such images of members of their own gender were never discussed or asked until recently.

The first important similarity between the two pieces is the obvious use of the reclining female nude. The female figure was a popular subject matter for the primitivists of this time, because society viewed women to be more “natural” than men, who were more “civilized.” Society assumed that women’s

The main focus of the painting intended by Titian is a nude woman, Venus, looking straightforwardly at the audience. The young woman’s nipples are erect; with her left hand covers her pubic area, the sexuality of this painting is unquestionable. She is completely naked except for the ring on her little finger and the bracelet around her wrist. It is clear that the intention of this painting is to evoke sensual feelings in its audience.

The human body has been coupled with various beliefs for all of history. It has been the centre and representation for questions of ethics, power and sexuality. Works like “Confession” by Linh Dinh have found ways to express these questions further. By focusing on questioning how the body operates in art, Dihn portrays and inquires a whole belief system as to how the body functions and is viewed in society.

In representing female subjects, both Pablo Picasso’s oil painting Les Demoiselles d’Avignon (1907) and Édouard Manet’s A Bar at the Folies-Bergère (1882) manipulate the formal techniques of composition and perspective to create new ways of seeing their subject, emulating their contemporary society’s shifting views of women and the individual. Les Demoiselles depicts five naked prostitutes, flaunting their bodies, and some wearing tribal masks. In comparison, A Bar at the Folies-Bergère represents a female, who may also be a prostitute, tending a bar. The depiction of previously ‘hidden’ female subjects alone was an innovation of the perception of the artist, however, the formal treatment in representing these subjects was an important break from tradition.

Reclining nude female is a common subject matter in art history since the Venetian Renaissance, Titian’s Venus of Urbino painted in 1538 is one of the earliest reclining nude female in painting history. It described a beautiful young female laying on her bed with her sleeping dog, on the back ground is her maids looking for cloth or her in the cassone. Manet’s Olympia that painted in 1865 is a painting with a similar composition, A nude young female who was suggested a prostitute, behind her is her black female maid holding a big bouquet of flower which is possibly from her customer. On the same part of the composition, there is an animal as well, but this time it is a cat. Titian and Manet’s reclining nude female have a same composition and subject matter, however They are very different in art history, both stylistically and culturally.

In Chapter 3 of his book, “Ways of Seeing”, John Berger argues that in western nude art and present day media, that women are largely shown and treated as objects upon whom power is asserted by men either as figures in the canvas or as spectators. Berger’s purpose is to make readers aware of how the perception of women in the art so that they will recognize the evolution of western cultured art.

The reading claims that nudes throughout artistic history have been an important source of beauty and controversy. Nudes began to spike during the Baroque period as they were used for the more expressive and emotional arts of the time. In the nineteenth century, nudes became more common, yet became more sensitive. Artists would train by drawing nudes of ancient Greek statues and figures from myth. However, many artists would then move on to create works depicting prostitutes or peasant naked women. This would not please patrons as they were extremely societally taboo. However, this did not start artists from making them, as they moved into the twentieth and twenty-first century. This shows the importance of artistic nudes and their impact

Artist and people viewing the art work have always had a fascination with the female nude. Even when I was a child my attention was captured by the nude art not because I was a kid and I saw a nude lady , but it forced me to wonder more about why the female nude was so amazing as a tool for art and why this is repeated so many times throughout the centuries. One female nude painting in particular was the subject of controversy and exposed the syncretism and or the power of the female nude painting.

While the human form has always been acceptable in art, the nude female form continues to stir

In many works of art throughout history, female breasts have been featured prominently and in the nude. The symbolic meaning credited to the breast was usually associated with fertility and nourishment, both spiritual and physical, and in the wider sense, with life. Eroticism, nourishment, abundance, expression, feminine power, as well as feminine subservience, are different contradicting themes of the breast played out in time.