the same way that the
female nude has been used. In
Sexual Vision in Women's Artwork
, Joan Semmel and April Kingsley
describe female artists attention to the p***s as
a means to invite girls to "demystify the male
Physiology" and support the re
alities of sexual meetings.
23
The artist Eunice Golden clarifies
that the work was meant to celeb
Speed sexuality, and that the imag
es of nude men shouldn't be
confused with porn. Golden considers that se
xual artwork is political artwork, as it "challenges
Broadly-held, age old, frequently distorted
Understandings and strategies about psycho sexual
Issues, sociological attitudes, and economic
precepts based on notions of propriety and
property."
24
To put it differently, when analyzing feminist
imagery of the male nude, we must comprehend
the wide-ranging consequences. A man
nude painted by a girl artist cr
eates an completely different
dialogue from a bare (male or
Practicing Nudism and Nudism In Today's World ) by a male artist.
During the 1970s, Sylvia Sleigh (1916-2010)
explored the aforementioned function reversal by
painting portraits of nude men. Semmel and
Kingsley write that, "Sleigh's attention to
detail in her male portraits is like that of a
woman stroking her lover's body."
25
In
Imperial Nude: Paul Rosano,
Nudism encourages a wholesome life style, and many naturist clubs at times organize and support members to get involved in local and international sport events and contests. The German Association for Free Body Culture (DFK) boosts recreational sports and is a part of the German Olympic Sport Federation (DOSB). in the timeless style of the reclining
female nude. In contrast to most of the man
n***s I have analyzed, I find
Paul Rosano
to be refreshingly hairy. Sleigh has not
Tried to idealize her theme, and instead
appreciates every asp
ect of his body, from
his curly mop of hair, to his under eye circles,
to his unintimidating p***s. The model appears
willing, and yet like so many reclining female
n***s, doesn't return the audience's (male or
female) gaze.
In Conclusion
This newspaper in no way attempts to give a comple
te history of the post-Renaissance male naked, but
instead aims to examine a handful of artists
and their depictions of nude guys over several
centuries. The male nude in art can help give vi
sual language to our understandings of masculinity
and femininity (both built notions
anyway) throughout time. Even merely by
Admitting the language, "naked guy" vs. "male bare" we can get insight into our
Sylvia Sleigh,
Imperial Nude: Paul Rosano,
1977. Oil
on canvas, 106.68 x 152.4 cm, Tate Modern.
relationship to this vision. "Male naked" seems
subdued and connected with high art, while
"naked guy" sounds practically vu
lgar. I purposely sca
ttered both terms throughout
this paper, in
order to help the reader (and my
self) get over the panic
of the naked guy. Important art historian
Kenneth Clark describes this divergence by expl
aining that the English
language distinguishes
the term nude as "deprived of
our clothing, and the world im
plies some of the embarrassment
most of us feel in that condition. The word nude
, on the other hand, carried, in educated use,
no uncomfortable overtones."
2626
My foray into the imagery of post-Renaissance
male n***s has affirmed
my feeling that our
relationship to the male nude is fully diffe
rent from our relationship to the female nude,
but still sophisticated. The naked guy in western ar
t represents the ever
-evolving ideal of manhood,
Together with the actuality of ex-husband
isting as a man. Artists can use
the male nude as a boat to
showcase their authentic selves, without actually
admitting anything. Or, artists can create an
idealized, if unrealistic version of manhood.
The most acceptable and prevalent imagery of
the male bare happens in academic settings
because studies of the body are considered to be essential practice for the artist's
Schooling. During the Neoclassical
Interval, as the popularity of the ma
le nude started to decline in
favor of female nude imagery, a feminized guy
emerged, in response to the first disaster in
Maleness. Subsequently, the torment and enigma of
life was admitted with the romanticized,
emotional guy in the sculptures of Rodin. Duri
ng the twentieth century, Egon Schiele responded
to a second, or perhaps continued crisis in masc
ulinity by examining his mental self as a
grotesque nude body. Subsequently, during the 1960s, Willia
m Theo Brown tried to impute a visual
language to his sexual preference and want. Fina
lly in the 1970s, femini
st artists embraced the
subject of the male nude as a manner to que
stion art and society's gender politics.
In the long run, it turns out there are many excep
tional examples of the male nude in post-
Renaissance western artwork. So, why is this male
nude so underrepresented in, say, art history
survey courses? I really believe that
There's a cycle set up. When
Vision of naked men began to
decline, and females became the preferred
nude, society got used
to naked girls, and
unaccustomed to naked guys. Because of this, the male body is cryptic and confusing to our
culture. I would like to s
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