By the Fountain: Step 7
In this image, everything but the dress is finished. Just as I anticipated, the right leg was actually easier to paint than the left one. It took longer since it is a lot bigger in terms of square inches, but there was no real trouble getting it to look just right. Actually, it is my favorite of all the feet I have painted.
The right arm went well too, but took much longer that the leg. Subtle areas like the inside of the elbow and the armpit require a lot of care. Although most people would have a really hard time drawing either of these things well, almost anyone would be immediately aware if something were wrong with someone else’s drawing (or painting). This is an especially delicate task when painting women. Exaggeration of musculature, veins and wrinkles are not a huge problem with a male figure, but it will absolutely ruin a female figure painting.
I always find it interesting what your eye will and will not accept in an image. For example, the reflections of the hand and foot in the fountain and wet concrete respectively, really didn’t make a lot of visual sense when the figure was unpainted. Now they are quite obviously reflections. They become suddenly recognizable once a little context is provided.
December 4th, 2005 at 10:30 am
Bryan,
I love how the piece is turning out, and I anxiously anticipate the final product. I noticed a difference in this piece from others in your collection that really stuck out, and that is the inclusion of cleavage. Aside from nude charcoal sketches (where nudity is geared more towards anatomical consistency than theme), this is the only piece of yours that exposes so much skin. Although the exposure is slight, I assume that it is also intentional, and was hoping you could elaborate not only on the purpose, if any, it serves in this piece, but also on the place of nudity, even partial, in art.
December 5th, 2005 at 10:00 am
Interesting question, Chris.
I have been trying to get more practice painting figures. With most of my previous work, much more attention has gone to the backgrounds, and with good reason: the backgrounds gave context to the figures. Now I feel I am at a point where the themes and subjects I want to paint require more mastery of the human form, of anatomy, of facial expression and body language, and of flesh tones. To that end, I have been painting a series of very simply themed paintings that put a lot of emphasis on the figure. That is one reason for the more revealing costume in this painting. The other is that it fits the light and carefree composition.
As for the more general question of the purpose and place of nudity in Art, I think there is a tendency to assume that nudity is inherently artistic if it is in a painting. But I think that, like every other element of composition, nudity should occur for a reason. It is true that drawing and painting nudes is an indispensable part of the study of figure painting. It is the only way to fully gain control over anatomy and the human form. In a full thematic work of Art, however, this is not the case. The costume of the figure in a painting is dictated by the subject matter and the theme. For this reason, there is a lot of nudity in classical paintings of Greek subjects, but not in paintings of the revolutionary war. Nudity was not as much a matter of concern to the ancient Greeks as it is today. Like it or not, nudity is now very closely tied to intimacy, and it conveys intimacy in a work of art. If the work in question is obviously a study of the figure, or if the theme is the beauty of the human form, this may not be the case. Since most of my non-scholastic work has featured more complex themes and, more to the point, contemporary subjects, the figures have been appropriately clothed for their environments. In short, if there is a reason for the subject of a painting to be nude, then it should be, otherwise it shouldn’t.