return to 2004 Choosing a Subject The most difficult subject you will approach as an artist
is the nude. The nude figure is not
only the most technically demanding subject, it is the most psychologically
demanding as well. It is
psychologically demanding because in tackling this subject an artist comes face
to face with his personal feelings toward his subject, whether these feelings
are sexual or not. He also of necessity
comes face to face with society's
feelings toward the nude in art and toward nudity in general. Personal and societal emotions run highest
with regard to the nude, for obvious reasons.
A painting of a landscape or still life can inspire and elicit strong
emotions in the artist and viewer, but the human face and figure are
unmatchable as conveyors of human emotion.
As van Gogh said, "I prefer painting people's eyes to cathedrals,
however solemn and inspiring the latter may be—a human soul, be it that of a
poor beggar or a streetwalker, is more interesting to me." For this reason the nude is the
subject least amenable to a strictly formal treatment. As a teacher I never recommend a style: an
artist must feel free to abstract as little or as much as he likes,
concentrating on line or color or composition as his inspiration demands. But
for me abstracting away from mood and emotion in a nude (or any figure) is
sacreligious. The mood and emotion shared
must be personal and therefore cannot be taught, but drawing the figure without
emotion is a contradiction. It is bad
manners, if nothing worse: it is like treating a lover or a friend as an
inamimate object. Beyond this, it is a
error in judgment, analoguous to the error of modernism. In an earlier paper I argued that using
visual art as a political tool was like using a dove's wing as a hammer. Treating the figure as a compositional
device or as a prop or as a human still life is also the misuse of a tool. It is to dehumanize the human, which is a
sin whether it is done by the avant garde or the realist. In a
conversation with an artist friend about another figure painter, the friend
made this comment regarding the composition: "The problem is he puts too
much space around the figure." My
reply was, "No, the problem is that he puts too much space inside
the figure." Whenever I see a
face or a figure that is treated like a flower or a table, I sigh and turn
away. So much potential for expression
has been lost. The problem, of course, is that one cannot invest a
drawing or painting with emotion just by wanting to. In many ways, the more an artist's intentions become conscious
the less likely they are to be realized.
A work of art will be emotional not to the extent the artist desires it
to be; it will be emotional to the extent, or depth, that he or she actually feels
it. Passion cannot be faked or
premeditated. This is why ones life outside
of art is so important, and why I put so much emphasis on addressing my reader
as a whole person. Because only a whole
person can create art. There will be no
love in your art if there is no love in your life, there will be no depth in
your art if there is no depth to your emotions, and there will be no depth to
your emotions unless you allow them to react with the world, positively and
negatively. Once an
artist allows
himself this "worldliness," he quickly discovers that society's
attitudes about the nude, and the nude in art, are anything but
encouraging. There are a few
connoisseurs who appreciate the nude, but in the US they are very rare. They are very rare even in Europe, where
everyone assumes that nudity is less taboo.
And the more emotion one shares the more difficult it becomes. Any content in a painting, any intention
beyond decoration, will be received defensively by the great majority of
gallery goers. And this is never more
true than with respect to the nude. Some
critics have complained that art does not effect the viewer as strongly and
deeply as other modern media. But the
truth is that modern viewers do not want to be effected strongly and
deeply by the sort of emotions that art is best at evoking. Somehow it is easier to disavow the
brutality of a faked death on the movie screen or an anonymous death on TV, or
to rationalize the shallow and meaningless sex on both screens, or to distance
oneself from global politics and mass destruction, than it is to make an
intimate connection to the mind of another individual. In the last case it too difficult to
suppress an honest response; and if that response is not one that fits in well
with a viewer's "lifestyle" or current assumptions, it can lead to
confusing and painful introspection--a response most people would prefer to
avoid. As Joshua Reynolds, an English
painter in the 18th century, said, "There is no length to which a man will
not go to avoid the necessity of thinking." And I would add, "There is no length to which the modern
man will not go to avoid the necessity of feeling." This reaction is probably more difficult for the artist
to come to terms with than any other. A
real artist knows that a strong emotional content is de rigueur, but
there are few viewers who are comfortable with this fact. Even those who may admit it as a piece of
scholarship often deny it when looking at actual paintings. One can understand a viewer's discomfort
before the brutalities of Modernism, but even the sublime fare of more
traditional art often causes unease when it tempts more than the tip of the
tongue. The bottom line is the better
the work—the greater the depth, the more personal the inspiration, the more
intimate the feeling—the less likely it is to find a buyer or admirer. Artists have always known this. A nude is hard enough to sell as decoration;
make a real work of art out of it and the public won't know what to do with
it. Look at the reaction to Munch's Puberty,
not just the historical reaction but the current reaction. It may be worth millions but most people
can't even look at it. I personally
face this fact everyday. My nudes,
which the avant garde appears to think are just regressive bits of classicism,
evoke the strangest reactions in the various realist markets, where they are
seen as almost menacing. It is not the
sexual content that viewers find off-putting, since there is no sexual
content. It is the emotional
content. These are not just figure studies,
they are real figures. As such, they
are scary. As progressive, enlightened, and sexually-liberated as
Americans may think they have become, most are still prudish and puritanical
when it comes to the nude, whether in art or in life. A minority of Americans would call themselves devout, in regards
to any religion, and yet most are more prejudiced against the nude than were
the Renaissance clergy or Martin Luther himself. Michelangelo was commissioned by both the city of Florence and by
Pope Julius in Rome to create murals containing large numbers of nudes, male
and female (and not just Biblical). But
he would have no chance of getting these works past the modern censors, so
fearful of our own bodies have we become.
The Sistine Chapel murals would not be possible now. Frederick Hart's Ex Nihilo
[Washington National Cathedral] is a thousand times tamer than the Sistine
Chapel, and had to be. Hardly a
week goes by that we don't hear of another public institution somewhere in the
country, a bank, or a city hall, or a university, or a library where art has
been removed for being offensive, often to only a single individual. And the examples are startling. I'm not talking about Robert Mapplethorpe or
other high-profile "shock artists".
I'm talking about one exposed breast in an otherwise inoffensive and
innocent photograph or painting. The
bare bottom of a Native American or Nubian.
Even, as I recently saw, a fully clothed Virgin Mary whose breasts were
considered too sexy. Dozens of
sculptures in Washington, DC, have been draped by executive order, with no
referendum or public discourse.
Religion is the primary cause of this reaction against artistic nudity,
but current wisdom has added the increased incidence and/or awareness of rape,
molestation, and other perversions to our doctrinal arguments against nudity
and sexuality. This coming together of
fact, religion and fear has all but negated the possiblity of seeing these
categories in a positive light. The
modern aptitude for mistrust and pessimism completely overmatches any aptitude
for recognizing and encouraging beauty and hope. We all have our reasons for mistrust, and they are good ones; but
we must remember that we also have our reasons for trust, and that they are
better ones--lest society actually collapse.
We must remember that the same sexuality that is misused to
create offensive and criminal images and acts may also be used to create
children. The same nudity that can lead
an unhealthy man to rape can inspire Michelangelo to sculpt The David,
can inspire Velazquez to paint the Rokeby Venus. Nonetheless, there will always be many people who will
give up the possibility for virtue if they can at the same time give up the potential
for evil. If sexuality, if nudity, are
potentially evil, do away with them, they will say. It is better to do nothing than to fear that you might do
something wrong. But it is worth noting
that the people who feel this way really mistrust themselves first. And they misunderstand virtue. To be virtuous is to be presented with the
opportunities of life, fully and freely, and to make the right choices because
you desire them. It is to be presented with all the possibilities of nudity
and sexuality, including the potential for evil, and to choose to be good, because
the goodness appeals to you. To be
more specific, it is to be capable of seeing the Virgin Mary's areolae through
her dress and finding that naturally human rather than sinfully tempting. It is to be capable of seeing a Sioux
warrior's loins in
a Public Works mural as historically
accurate rather than
threateningly pagan. And it is to be
capable of recognizing the beauty of a prepubescent girl (in a photograph by
Jock Sturges, for instance) and to rejoice in that beauty, to treat it as an
affirmation of all that is still good and pure in the world, rather than as an
invitation to molest her. Finally it is
to guard your own pure love for beauty by not allowing it to be sullied
by the impure thoughts and desires of others.
I have been told that the nude in art is dangerous
because it is tempting. It is like
playing with fire. But isn't that the
way life is? Isn't that the way life is
supposed to be? A life without
choices is no life at all. People do
have bodies. People must have sex. They can have beautiful bodies and beautiful
sex, or ugly bodies and ugly sex; beautiful attitudes about their bodies and
their sexuality, or ugly attitudes about their bodies and their sexuality. But they cannot renounce the choice to have
bodies and sex. Not, it seems to me,
without renouncing life itself. Many are no longer able, and know they are
no longer able, to make the right choice: to choose to see beauty instead of
immodesty, to see love and trust and intimacy instead of lust and violence and
selfishness. And so they renounce the
choice. But where there can be no sin
there can be no virtue. Or, if those
terms carry to much baggage, I might say that where there is no possibility of
doing the wrong thing, there is no possibility of doing the right thing. And so many prefer to do nothing. Their love is nonexistent, or tepid and
unfulfilling. They look guilty in the
presence of the beauty of their own children.
Their lives become a disgrace to any healthy religion or god. This all goes to say that the contemporary artist, as far
as he or she is interested in a healthy life and a healthy art, is in the
position of a blade runner. The artist
(and especially the painter or sculptor of nudes) must run, and run well, a
narrow path between artistic and sexual resignation (which resignation leads to
creative celibacy) and outright hedonism and perversion, all encouragement
being to fall off on either side. To
discover the true nature of the instincts one must first make an experiment of
oneself. An artist must allow himself
the freedom to approach nudity and sexuality (if such is his or her interest)
with an unjaundiced eye; to see it, as far as possible, like Adam saw Eve, or
Eve saw Adam. It is to take a risk, to
array the actual choices of life before you as they are naturally presented,
and to choose based on your own store of wisdom and strength. It is to align yourself against the whole
world, if the truth demands it: to discover your paradise and go there, alone
if need be. If you have a healthy attitude about the nude, if you
have a healthy attitude about anything, you will have immediately pared your
audience down to almost nothing. This
is hard to admit. But once you have
made this sobering discovery, you are free to go from there. Dazzlingly free. Meaning that almost nobody will give a damn what you do one way
or the other. This admission, as hopeless as it might seem at first,
actually puts you in the firmest of creative positions. After all, the best place to begin creating
is in the void. Here, at least, you
don't have to worry about bumping into or tripping over anyone's expectations. Perhaps if you had not been forced by
circumstance into this empty room, you would have spent a lifetime searching
for its solitude. If this paper was useful to you in any way, please consider donating a dollar (or more) to the SAVE THE ARTISTS FOUNDATION. This will allow me to continue writing these "unpublishable" things. Don't be confused by paying Melisa Smith--that is just one of my many noms de plume. If you are a Paypal user, there is no fee; so it might be worth your while to become one. Otherwise they will rob us 33 cents for each transaction. |