The history of the female nude in art is long and storied, having originated almost as soon as our species decided to create art. We've seen this staple in art transform through time, from Nude Woman (previously known as Venus of Willendorf) to the of…
The history of the female nude in art is long and storied, having originated almost as soon as our species decided to create art. We've seen this staple in art transform through time, from Nude Woman (previously known as Venus of Willendorf) to the oft praised Venus of Urbino by Titian. For the West, academic art has an overall formula for what art should be, especially in regards to the female nude. Female nudes were to be about Greek or Roman goddesses, idealized and coyly looking away from the viewer. They were to be painted so that the brushstrokes were not evident, as if the painting were not a painting but rather a window into another world. Most importantly, they were to be painted by men, for painting was a man's occupation and painting nudes of any kind was considered highly improper for women. The way in which women and their sexuality were represented was decided by men, leaving ownership of their identities out of their hands.
The female nude starts to change when modern art emerges. While when modernism actually began is still a matter of debate, it is generally accepted to have begun in 1863 with Éduoard Manet's painting Luncheon on the Grass. A similar painting that is also very revolutionary in terms of the female nude is Manet's Olympia from that same year. Seen here is the use of that staple in art, the female nude, but one that entirely rejects the academic tradition. It visually quotes Titian's Venus of Urbino but with a twist. It ironically uses the name of a goddess for the reclining nude woman presented who is in reality a prostitute accompanied by her servant. Olympia is unidealized and looks directly at the viewer, confronting the viewer with her sexuality. Manet's open brush-work is evident, emphasizing that this is in fact a painting and not a window into another world. The only way this painting is academically sound is that it was painted by a man. The only involvement women have in the process of making this painting is being the subjects depicted.
Venus of Urbino by Titian, 1534.
Olympia by Édouard Manet, 1863.
Eduoard Manet's Olympia is revolutionary in pushing the envelope of what art and female nudes were and that is why it is considered the start of modernism. The artwork that shreds the envelope, however, experimenting with what the modernist female nude could be, was Yves Klein's Anthropométrie De L'époque Bleue (ANT 82) from 1960. This piece that was made close to a century after Olympia shares many qualities with its predecessor while highlighting its uniqueness by upping the ante regarding the issues it addresses. Put another way, Anthropométrie De L'époque Bleue (ANT 82) is more honest and subversive about art making and art viewing as it relates to the female nude while still leaving up important questions surrounding gender and sexuality to be answered.
Anthropométrie De L'époque Bleue (ANT 82) by Yves Klein, 1960.
Firstly, Manet's Olympia and Klein's Anthropométrie strip away the illusionism of the art making process. This is first done via honestly displaying the materials used. As previously stated, Manet made his brushwork evident, emphasizing the medium and the flatness of the picture plane through his lack of modeling on the figures presented. Klein pushes this honesty with his materials to the max by making his artwork into a performance, that painting is not just something that happens on a canvas but an active creation. Members of the audience are shown the art making process right in front of them as nude female models slather Klein's paint, International Klein Blue (IKB), over themselves before pressing their bodies to the canvas as directed by the artist. While Manet is revolutionary for his time by exposing his brushwork to paint the female body, Klein is radical for making the female body his brush and for having the female models be the ones to paint their own nudes in a way.
Furthermore, the actual content of Klein's Anthropométrie lacks any type of illusionism whatsoever. Olympia, while not highly finished and illusionistic as the academic art it rejects, does have modeling on its figures and sets the figures into a scene. It is trying to tell a small narrative with its use of a setting, the props used, its figures' actions. Anthropométrie has none of these. The flat blue impressions of five female nude bodies are left in a slightly curved horizontal line on a blank white canvas, slightly smudged with blue from where the models touched and arranged themselves on the surface. There is no modeling, no set, no props, and no action being performed on the piece except for the performance where the models pressed themselves to the canvas. This honesty, in both process and content, helps in revealing why people view female nudes in the first place.
Both Olympia and Anthropométrie confront the viewer with the gender and sexuality of the nude females they are choosing to view. Manet's piece does this cheekily by referencing the academic use of goddesses for the name of his prostitute. He uses the name Olympia to mock what polite society tries to hide away, that this is a nude woman and not a goddess. Olympia stares directly out at the viewer, rendered in an unidealized manner. Yet, all of this is still presenting an illusion in its painted process and representational end result, the directness of the femininity and sexuality of Olympia impeded as she is paint applied by a man with a brush. Anthropométrie is, again, far more direct and radical. Since it is a performance piece and the medium itself is the paint covered, female models nude bodies, the viewer is forced to come to terms with the gender and sexuality of the art they are viewing. Further, since it is only the trunk of the body being painted, from the breasts to the thighs of the model rather than a full rendering of their bodies like Olympia, the viewer and the work itself is faced with why they are viewing this piece: to view these parts of the female body specifically.
While all of this shows how Anthropométrie took what Olympia began in modernism with the female nude to a ground-breaking level, there are still issues of gender, representation, and power dynamics that must be discussed. For as radical as they are, both works of art are of women by men, carrying on the academic tradition in their own ways. The inventive thing about Anthropométrie is that the women are active participants in their own painted nude, human paintbrushes creating an exactness of their likeness. The women have a hand in their representation, unlike Olympia being represented through the eyes and hand of a man. However, Anthropométrie is still credited to Yves Klein and the women are still being used as his tools. Even if he did not touch them, he was still directing them about the canvas. They were still instruments in his performance. Manet and Klein use their female subjects for conceptual yet performative ends, both sparking controversies that bolstered their careers and landed them a place in history. At its core, Anthropométrie continues what Olympia and the rest of academic female nudes did which is have a male artist be the creator in charge and in power of the representation of his female subject. There is still a misogyny in both works no matter how liberating they might have been in their approach to. Women are empowered, specifically in regards to their nude bodies, but only so far as they were used as a tool for a male artist.
Certain questions arise, of course, from these gray areas. Is men painting women inherently an issue of gender? Will there always be questions of gender in art? Is the female body inherently sexual? Why is it that humans are so obsessed with putting it in their art, so much so that when women are represented in art, their nude bodies make up a majority of that representation? The issues these pieces bring up are ones that can't easily be addressed or resolved. They can only be discussed. Through discussion, it will help people get close to understanding these issues of representation and identity, of gender and sexuality, of why they create and view the art they do. These topics that were always so interesting from the human species inception, that were so delightfully discussed in Modern art, will hopefully continue to be explored in this Postmodern era.
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