art 19 composition lecture

Composition Theme and Other Interesting Stuff

Nudity verses nakedness?

(19th C. Neoclassical)

(11th C. Medieval)

To be naked is to be deprived of our clothes, and the word implies some of the embarrassment most of us feel in that condition. The word ‘nude’, on the other hand, carries, in educated usage, no uncomfortable overtone. The vague image it projects into the mind is not of a huddled and defenseless body, but of a balanced, prosperous, and confident body: the body re-formed.

--Kenneth Clark, The Nude: A Study in Ideal Form

Aphrodite of Knidos, 4th C. BC

Sandro Botticelli’s Birth of Venus (Italian, 1485)

Titian’s Venus of Urbino (16th Century Italian)

Manet’s Olympia (1863)

Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres’ Jupiter and Antiope (1851)

“Slave girl, harem dweller, prostitute, she could perform all manner of outrageous acts as long as her fictional innocence and the fantasy of her controlled status were maintained.”

Edgar Degas’ Bathers

Pastel on Paper

(French, 1880’s)

Edward Weston

(1920’s-1930’s)

OK: Let’s focus on Composition and on decontextualizing our model!