Nude In Western Paintings Essays - Visual Arts, Painting, Nude Art

Nude In Western Paintings The depiction of the nude female model by a male artist in oil painting has played a significant role in the western tradition over the last 500 years. The oil painting of the female nude is subject to the artist's interpretation of her form. She is affected by the artist's desire for his model, as well as his art and she is torn between the artist's inability to be both lover and painter. Hubert Damisch's "The Underneaths of Painting" helps the reader understand the importance of the male painter's imaging of the female form. By analyzing Balzac's Unknown Masterpiece, Damisch uncovers several tangents to the unique relationship between artist's and the women they create on canvas. Balzac tells a tale of the truth behind the creative process of an artist and the way he perceives his vision when finally completed in oil. Poussin is a young painter who doesn't quite understand how the concepts of desire and love will affect the perception of his model, and lover, Gilette. He soon embarks on a journey that takes him underneath the paint: "Under the paint and as its ?truth', instead and in the place of the so-called picture, the exchange assuming its last true face: a woman for a picture and a woman for what forms (or ought to) its subject. It is at this point in the picture where the subterranean, archaeological presence of the woman reveals itself, that something is given to see, something that can be spoken, that can be named, something moreover alive, delectable, a foothold for desire; in a word, something that looks at us unlike the inexpressible wall of paint that holds it captive," (Damisch 202). There are many layers of paint put on to one canvas, but the image isn't visible right away, she must grow through the brushstrokes. When the last brush of paint touches the canvas, her beauty is revealed to the eye. The artist has created his masterpiece and she can be discussed like a real woman now; she has a name, she has the personality the artist has given her which makes her come alive, she is so real that observers feel the need to touch her and she looks right back. The paint from which she came is an afterthought and because Poussin is hungry for a piece that can accomplish all this, he chooses his work over his love. Damisch utilizes Balzac's tale to define the position of the artist's heart. It is inevitable that every painter that is dedicated to his work cannot be capable of loving anything so much as the act of expressing one's self through paint. He falls in love with his creation and there can be no room for a tangible love. Here is Damisch: "...one has to choose between being a lover and a painter. Poussin will be assailed by doubt at the thought that another person could look at Gilette, and look at her as only he was allowed to see her: naked. But this doubt will soon vanish: the young man will forget his mistress, he will desire only to be a painter, he will see his art and nothing else," (Damisch 200). Poussin has not fully recognized the intensity of the connection that an artist has with his work and doesn't realize that Gilette is what's holding him back. Since he shares his love with her and his work, Poussin cannot capture true realism in the females he depicts. Although he loves her at this point and couldn't possibly think of letting anyone see Gilette, Poussin will discover that to let her pose for other artists isn't as shattering a suggestion when he creates the nude that will lend his heart solely to the act of expression. The artist will then transfer his feelings of obsession for Gilette to his work and he will be able to love no other with the same intensity that he enjoys his work. Damisch questions the role of desire in the conversion of the female model into the artist's Venus. He asks: "What of the working of desire in its relation to the desire of the other?" and then goes on to report that: "...we are amongst painters who only have eyes for painting. As far as Gilette is concerned she has no part in their commerce: she doesn't look at the painting, but sees only the painters...Poussin, while drawing her, was no doubt looking at her, but was not thinking about her...She does not say: without desiring