Nudes

[Gabriel M.A.]

I'd go further back and say that historically most artists have been male ...

Well, the ones that didn't get purged from History. The Greeks had quite a share of female artists. There were...err...institutions...that didn't agree with that and erased them from human memory.

 

[paulfitz76]

Ian, you make a very interesting point about male versus female nudity for art's sake. I would tend to agree with you that it changed somewhere in the middle ages.

Most of what I see today is basically nude catalogue photography and it's pretty boring. Not too many can really tell a story with this kind of photo, they get too lost in the subject. I'd be interested to see nudes where more emotion is evoked with the picture rather than just simple desire. If anyone ever looks at John Peri's stuff on photo.net, I think he's close to this aesthetic.

He's a film shooter too 🙂

 

[Andrew Sowerby]

Well, the ones that didn't get purged from History. The Greeks had quite a share of female artists. There were...err...institutions...that didn't agree with that and erased them from human memory.

Yes, I agree. I should have said recognized artists.

 

[Carzee]

"Retro-femininity imagery". Huh?? Imagery that retreats back to femininity? I hope it's not the "barefoot and pregnant" kind of retrograde imagery. I'm honestly confused.

confused? quoting Confucius 🙂

Apologies for being too brief. My bad.

Femininity is a hot button word; feminists have put about the idea that its mysoganistic and insulting. q "barefoot and pregnant" uq. But its irrational cant for dogma sponges; does the opposite term masculinity trigger imagery of lunchbox and process-line-night-shifts?

What I meant by retro-femininity? I'm not thinking of your 20century Norman Rockwell relic-femininity. I'm thinking of classic beauty (maybe Grace Kelly or Bardot or Princess Diana or Elle) in actual flowing/glowing silk and lace dresses... boudoir glamour.

I could get personal and dig around in my head. What makes it attractive to me... well I liked the soft focus trend when it came in.... eg; David Hamilton's stuff. Yes. I discovered his pix in the 1970's it had something ethereal, something beautiful, something innocent and indecent at the same time. Or was it simply voyeurism in a new guise - it was about young french ladies dressing in their bedrooms etc. But Hamilton had something in contrast to the Penthouse-style american women in the magazine stands. Thats when I was in high school. Of course, nowadays, some of Hamiltons models make me react with "hmmm, pedophiles would love this stuff".

 

[shutterfiend]

confused? quoting Confucius 🙂

Apologies for being too brief. My bad.

Femininity is a hot button word; feminists have put about the idea that its mysoganistic and insulting. q "barefoot and pregnant" uq. But its irrational cant for dogma sponges; does the opposite term masculinity trigger imagery of lunchbox and process-line-night-shifts?

What I meant by retro-femininity? I'm not thinking of your 20century Norman Rockwell relic-femininity. I'm thinking of classic beauty (maybe Grace Kelly or Bardot or Princess Diana or Elle) in actual flowing/glowing silk and lace dresses... boudoir glamour.

I could get personal and dig around in my head. What makes it attractive to me... well I liked the soft focus trend when it came in.... eg; David Hamilton's stuff. Yes. I discovered his pix in the 1970's it had something ethereal, something beautiful, something innocent and indecent at the same time. Or was it simply voyeurism in a new guise - it was about young french ladies dressing in their bedrooms etc. But Hamilton had something in contrast to the Penthouse-style american women in the magazine stands. Thats when I was in high school. Of course, nowadays, some of Hamiltons models make me react with "hmmm, pedophiles would love this stuff".

You like, so full of wow, dude. I like, nekid yeah, point my long lens, or sumthin'. Any you like, wow serious wow. Like, see a wow, dude, or sumthin'. Peace, dude.

 

[ruben]

Most photographers (male and female) choose to study female nudes. Is it because male models are more bashful? Is it because most (male and female) find female nudes more appealing? Or is it because the female nude has more to offer in terms of texture and form than their male counterparts?

One viewpoint: http://photography.about.com/library/weekly/aa092500a.htm

Hi Shutter,
I catch this thread a bit late, and nevertheless let me congratulate you for posing a good question. I, in your place would post it at the Guy or Gal thread, but this is another issue.

I could say many things about it, most of them provoking healthy controversies. Instead I will rebuke your good question with a flat and simple truth:
A good picture is a good picture.

Cheers,
Ruben

 

[shutterfiend]

Spoken like a true master.

 

[FrankS]

A good picture is a good picture.

True enough, but it doesn't answer the question. (Happy birthday, Ruben!)

 

[Creagerj]

I would say it's all about cultural constraints and trends, namely those that are a result of religion. In the times of the Greek, women weren't so important except for the purpose of making more men. Thats not to say that women weren't viewed as unimportant either, but men ruled society, very much more so than they do today. Also from a religious standpoint, they knew what there God looked like and what his name was, thus a figure that is Zeus like is something to be appreciated and displayed. You display what you consider important.

In the middle ages, European society was probably as pious as it has ever been and maybe ever will be. Art was deeply religious, and generally only accepted if it was religious. If you have ever wondered why pre 1500s pictures have just one background there is a reason. The goldish background was not a result of the artist poor creativity, it represented God and how God is all encompassing. Along with religion, is the concept of original sin. Those most likely to commit original sin were women, as viewed by the mid evil mind (including women). Men were the ones capable of preventing others from sinning. Thus if you wanted to depict something capable of good, paint a man, if you want to depict a picture of something that has the potential for evil, paint a women. Think about it, especially in those times, most prostitutes were women. Its kind of like drugs, we tend to blame the dealer not the user. I could go a lot further into this but it would stop pertaining to art very quickly. In short, at this time men are still important.

Now we see things a little different. Most of us probably wouldn't say that women are inherently evil, and men are inherently good. Most crimes are committed by men, almost all sexual-abuse crimes are committed by men (partially because of how the law is written and mostly because we are more capable of it). At any rate times have changed, but our nature hasn't. We depict and praise what we value the most. Culturally we value women. We value sex, female beauty, and relationships with women. Thus we idolize what we want.

However this really only pertains to culture that stems from Christine values. Islamic values see things very differently, along with other cultures as well.

 

[Nick R.]

Excellent analysis, Ian. But if I may add, male and female nudes existed side-by-side in western art until the Victorian age when the male form more or less fades from the popular art scene. I think it has something to do with the rise in middle class wealth and the buying habits of middle age men.

I think the reason for the general preference for female nudes can be traced back to a particular response to the classical tradition - one which has shaped western art since the Renaissance.

In classic Aristotelian biology, the male body is perfect, beautiful and good. Masculine nudity in classical Greece was virtually synonomous with civilisation itself: the body was clean, efficient, public - it expressed the virtues of a rational, assertive, warrior society.

The female body, by contrast, was innately defective, chaotic, soft, malformed: women were intuitive and emotional not rational.

Aristotelian thought shaped western consciousness but from the late middle ages one finds a new, essentially Platonic ethos developing: one which asserts the imaginative, private, intuitive and emotional. It manifests as what we might describe as the reinvention of art as personal expression. Given the cultural background, I would argue that the female body was the natural symbolic medium for the expression of this change, and remains so.

All the best, Ian

 

[Gabriel M.A.]

A good picture is a good picture.

This begs the question: is "good" Absolute? If I say something is "good", then everybody who disagrees with me is "wrong"?

Or did you mean to say, (and I'm doing a lot of logical argument leaps here): "Beauty is in the eye of the beholder"?

 

[Wimpler]

I think it strongly depends on:
1. What the photographer wants the photograph to be
2. What the viewer searches for in the photograph

For example, you can look at the model as an actual person, who has feelings, who you might ever meet, ... Or you could look at the model as an object, like a vase, just to give an example.

Some people totally seperate these two points of view, some do not.