The Bare Facts: Nude v. Naked

How One Man’s Broccoli is Another Man's Asparagus in the Southcoast, MA – HERE’S A POST THAT ATTEMPTS TO BLEND WHAT I BELIEVE IS SIMILAR ABOUT MARKETING AND ART –  Why?  It’s partly an exercise and a leap of faith.  Much of drawing is about focused observation.  By that, I mean, really looking at what you’re looking at.  Observation feeds perception and perception frames reality.  In business, you have to be observant.  Vigilant.  Every nuance.  Every inflection.  Everything offers a clue.  But, you have to know what you’re looking at.  You can’t jump to any conclusions.  You have to be aware of patterns and trends.

When you look, regardless of who you are, business (marketer) person or draftsman (artist), what are you looking at?  What do you see?  The old chestnut of one man’s trash being another man’s treasure is the same as one man’s opportunity is another man’s threat comes down to one thing – perception.  My college art instructor Herb Cummings used to have his own  version of that old chestnut: One man’s broccoli is another man’s asparagus. 

What it means is, that there is a danger of allowing our preconceptions to cloud or distort our judgement.  Eye witness reports are unreliable for that very reason.  What you see may not be what you’re actually seeing because you’re not looking at what you’re looking at objectively or, with objectivity.  Much of art (appreciation) is about objectivity.  Case in point: A work of art depicting an unclothed woman.  One observer sees a nude figure.  The other sees a naked woman.  The painting or sculpture hasn’t changed.  Why then, are the observations entirely different?  Does education or experience, or the lack of either define the objectivity of the observation? 

In art school, live drawing classes or, figure drawing classes, utilize the unclothed human figure.  Some of you reading the preceding sentence read it as follows: In art school, live drawing classes, or figure drawing classes, utilize naked models. While, others read it as: In art school, live drawing classes, or figure drawing classes, utilize the nude figure.  Why?  Maybe, it’s a reflection of either your present state of mind, or your lack of perspective on the subject.  Maybe it’s straight-out stereotyping and prejudice as a result of your cultural or religious background.  Whether a model is nude or naked to you may be a matter of your sense of morality. Where to an artist, it’s a matter of aesthetics. 

Perhaps this may be helpful: The model is only nude when no sexual thought enters into your perception. Why are nude models used as part of drawing (art) instruction?  Because it is a tradition handed down to us from ancient Greece and Rome.  They believed the human body was to be glorified for what it was objectively.  It was not objectified.  That in a nutshell is the difference between nude and naked.  Learning how to draw the unclothed human figure is difficult for many reasons on many levels.  I plan on doing a post devoted exactly to this. 

Art instruction, (yeah, here comes the pun) strips away the student’s preconceptions of what drawing is, as well as, the subject, motif or model, clothed or otherwise, in front of them.  Looking exercises force them to really see what they’re looking at.  It does this through a series of objective (there’s that word again) exercises.  The students think the exercises are just drawing exercises when in reality, they’re looking exercises.  One of which has the students drawing everything that isn’t the subject, motif or model.  It helps students see the subject, motif or model from a different perspective.  Wasn’t it Christ who said, “…seek and you will find…”?   

Part of the spiritual awakening that comes with learning how to draw is the finding – the finding of yourself. He also said, in reference to his doubting apostle Thomas, "Blessed are they that have not seen, and yet have believed."  If I’m going to tie drawing and spirituality together based on “Religion and art – the hallmarks of civilization...” then, I’m going to present to you that learning to draw (art) is a leap of faith requiring the student to trust the teacher and themselves. Speaking of faith; religion(s) has been entwined with Art through one, many or all of its manifestations of drawing/painting, music, dance and singing.  At several points in history, they were inseparable.  I have a whole theory of the current state of both but, I’ll visit that at another time.

 

This presence and level of trust determines what you see.  With all of this in mind, the difference between the observer (draftsman), or the viewer of the drawing, seeing an unclothed or, a nude figure is based on the same reason one business person sees an opportunity for what it is, or for what it may be – a threat.  What separates the two is perspective, which is an interesting word.  It is defined as one’s view or outlook of the subject, or point of view.  It is about posessing an ability to perceive the actual interrelations or comparative importance of things.  Much of marketing then is no different than art; it is about sustaining an acute level of observation and objectivity as well.

Most interestingly, perspective is also defined as a technique utilized by artists to represent three-dimensional objects and depth relationships on a two-dimensional surface. Linear perspective was both en vogue and the new standard in art during the Renaissance. Perspective changed a lot more than art.  It also changed how Westerners viewed themselves and the World.  It was as if Europeans were seeing space and their surroundings for the first time.  

Jacques Cauvin, the archaeologist who started his career in the Paleolithic era caves in France, spoke of a "revolution of symbols." He viewed this revolution as a shift in the ability of humans to conceptualize.  The revolution gave humans the ability to imagine gods.  Drawing went from an act of observing and duplicating (or, recording) the surrounding natural environment to imagining, through symbols (which developed into writing), the supernatural and a metaphysical universe beyond the perceived physical world to assist in answering who we are, why we’re here and whether or not we’re alone..

IMAGE: Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres - Little Bather or Inside a Harem - 1828