2024 Author: Leah Sherlock | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 05:25
Nude, or the image of the nude, is one of the fundamental genres of painting. So it was in prehistoric times (remember the stone "Venuses"). Throughout the history of mankind, artists have experienced the greatest interest in the naked body, which has not faded to this day. "Nudes" in the painting of the 21st century have absorbed the centuries-old experience of depicting the body.
Ancient world
The primitive artist saw in the image of the body (primarily female) a symbol of fertility and endowed it with the appropriate proportions. With the development of civilization, the canons of the image of a person also changed: in ancient Egypt, the first canonical images of people appeared, which later gave way to Greek sculptures and frescoes.
In ancient Greece, the cult of the naked body reached its apogee - nudity was not considered obscene and defiant, images of athletically built bodies were made in full accordance with the anatomy and discoveries of scientists (the golden ratio is an example of this).
Christianity: Middle Ages
With the spread of Christianity, the nudity in painting abruptly lost its positions - nudity became the personification of sinfulness and demonic temptation. However, the illustrations of some biblical scenes could not do without images of the naked body.
By the end of the Middle Ages, nudity lost its status as a forbidden fruit, and with the onset of the Renaissance, a new flowering of painting began, including the nude genre. Anthropocentrism, characteristic of Renaissance thinkers, was embodied in the visual arts. Nude nature in the paintings of Raphael, Michelangelo, Da Vinci and other artists of that time became an integral attribute of their secular paintings and church paintings. Truly recognizable author's styles have appeared - piles of massive bodies of the same Michelangelo are hard not to recognize.
New time
In the 16th century, there was again a departure from naturalness, aesthetic ideas changed and a new canon of beauty arose, which included unnaturally elongated body proportions. Soon, under the influence of the Counter-Reformation, nudity was again condemned by the church. But by the beginning of the 16th century, mannerism again gave way to naturalness. This period produced great masters such as Caravaggio, Rembrandt and Rubens who showed the human body in its entirety, whatever that means. They depicted not only beauty, but also flaws. Nude nature in the paintings of these artists is characterized by deep psychologism.
The coming period of classicism (XVIII century)put an end to psychological research. This time marked a return to the ancient tradition with its strict ideal of beauty. But the longer this period lasted, the more this tradition degenerated, and by the middle of the 19th century, classicism mutated into dry academicism, characteristic of the official painting of that time.
The protest was declared by the Impressionists - "Breakfast on the Grass" and "Olympia" by Manet, causing a scandal, became the beginning of a new era. The nude in painting finally got rid of the sanctimonious pseudo-morality and gained true freedom.
Modernity
At the beginning of the 20th century, the era of freedom began. Each artist gained the right to interpret the human body in his own way, which gave an amazing result. "Avignon girls" by Picasso and still-life girls by Matisse, prostitutes by Georges Rouault - a spit in the face of traditional art that gave rise to the art of the new century.
Many took the path of simplification, others - deobjectification. Nude nature in modern painting is the subject of free artistic interpretation, the result of which is the whole spectrum of this direction, from abstraction to hyperrealism.
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