Human body
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Lost and found
Cécile Plaisance
Photography - 70 x 57 x 4 cm Photography - 27.6 x 22.4 x 1.6 inch
$8,414
Interpretation: Rubens (2)
Edin Mustafic
Photography - 75 x 50 x 2 cm Photography - 29.5 x 19.7 x 0.8 inch
$1,178
Mademoiselle A
Antoniucci Volti
Sculpture - 34 x 54 x 28 cm Sculpture - 13.4 x 21.3 x 11 inch
$31,413
Venus
Marie-Madeleine Vitrolles
Sculpture - 142 x 22 x 22 cm Sculpture - 55.9 x 8.7 x 8.7 inch
$4,263
Série Adam et Eve - 2/1
Line Taarnberg
Photography - 30 x 30 x 1 cm Photography - 11.8 x 11.8 x 0.4 inch
$449
Strippers in a Club, Atlanta, Georgia
Leonard Freed
Photography - 27.9 x 35.6 cm Photography - 11 x 14 inch
$5,000
Sans titre
Bruce Tchibozo
Fine Art Drawings - 32.5 x 50 cm Fine Art Drawings - 12.8 x 19.7 inch
$673
Nisus et Euryale - Énéide de Virgile - série Mythologie romaine
Henri Mahé dit HIM
Painting - 73 x 60 x 2 cm Painting - 28.7 x 23.6 x 0.8 inch
$3,506
Kouros Triptych 01
Michael James O'Brien
Photography - 61 x 152.4 x 0.3 cm Photography - 24 x 60 x 0.1 inch
$12,000
Excentricité ordinaire Hervé tatoué
Arnaud Baumann
Photography - 80 x 80 x 0.1 cm Photography - 31.5 x 31.5 x 0 inch
$3,702
Man at Window
Anyck Alvarez Kerloch
Painting - 180.3 x 114.3 x 2.5 cm Painting - 71 x 45 x 1 inch
$3,050
Les deux rouquines
Victorine Follana
Painting - 100 x 81 x 4 cm Painting - 39.4 x 31.9 x 1.6 inch
$2,805
Langue de danseuse
Arnaud Baumann
Photography - 120 x 80 x 0.1 cm Photography - 47.2 x 31.5 x 0 inch
$3,254
Mes bras pour te reposer
Emilie Teillaud
Painting - 71 x 100 x 3 cm Painting - 28 x 39.4 x 1.2 inch
$1,571
Different Shades of Human
Salome Khubashvili
Painting - 110 x 160 x 2 cm Painting - 43.3 x 63 x 0.8 inch
$3,366
Pen & ink wash drawing
Michael Burgess
Fine Art Drawings - 77 x 56 x 3 cm Fine Art Drawings - 30.3 x 22 x 1.2 inch
$698 $593
Spa & Wellness – I
Alexander Levich
Painting - 45 x 40 x 2 cm Painting - 17.7 x 15.7 x 0.8 inch
$774
The Wave Rider – I
Alexander Levich
Painting - 45 x 35 x 2 cm Painting - 17.7 x 13.8 x 0.8 inch
$774
The Wave Rider – II
Alexander Levich
Painting - 45 x 35 x 2 cm Painting - 17.7 x 13.8 x 0.8 inch
$774
Double Betty Boop on a Little Blue Cloud
Joanna Glazer
Painting - 100 x 80 x 1 cm Painting - 39.4 x 31.5 x 0.4 inch
$550 $275
In Spite of dreams (Diptychs), Portfolio of 6 photographs
Michael James O'Brien
Photography - 152.4 x 152.4 x 0.3 cm Photography - 60 x 60 x 0.1 inch
$15,000
Surrender Cup, The Connections (Third Life)
Paige Bradley
Sculpture - 76.2 x 22.9 x 26.7 cm Sculpture - 30 x 9 x 10.5 inch
$18,500
1952 Paris Muse aux seins nus
Kam Zin Choon
Fine Art Drawings - 60 x 46 x 0.5 cm Fine Art Drawings - 23.6 x 18.1 x 0.2 inch
$1,066
Le parfum des couleurs
Francky Criquet
Painting - 122 x 172 x 3 cm Painting - 48 x 67.7 x 1.2 inch
$5,273
Divadlo na Prádle
Lukas Dvorak
Photography - 61 x 81.3 x 0.3 cm Photography - 24 x 32 x 0.1 inch
$1,800
Emotions in Cube
Shota Imerlishvili
Fine Art Drawings - 63 x 43 x 0.1 cm Fine Art Drawings - 24.8 x 16.9 x 0 inch
$5,049
Overfloating XXIII
Matteo Nannini
Painting - 120 x 100 x 3 cm Painting - 47.2 x 39.4 x 1.2 inch
$5,385
La madre
Dimitris Pavlopoulos
Painting - 159.8 x 150.1 x 3 cm Painting - 62.9 x 59.1 x 1.2 inch
$5,000
Cauchemars - Odalisque aux poissons
Lionel Morateur
Print - 50 x 70 x 0.1 cm Print - 19.7 x 27.6 x 0 inch
$309
Paris-Pékin
Marie-Madeleine Gautier
Sculpture - 68 x 38 x 50 cm Sculpture - 26.8 x 15 x 19.7 inch
$29,169
Muguet
Marie-Madeleine Gautier
Sculpture - 67 x 34 x 30 cm Sculpture - 26.4 x 13.4 x 11.8 inch
$9,536
Feeling, Painting, Oil on canvas
Andrey Chebotaru
Painting - 140 x 140 x 2.5 cm Painting - 55.1 x 55.1 x 1 inch
$5,150
Human body
'I wanted to conquer the world. But I also desperately wanted to understand human nature, and to know what was inside our bodies. To do this, I have spent whole night dissecting bodies, against the direct orders of the Pope. Nothing disgusts me. What I am looking for, truly, in all of my work and particularly in my painting, what I have looked for all my life, is to understand the mystery that is human nature' – from the notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci in the 16th century.
At the time of writing these notes, da Vinci had already made greater understanding of the human body the primary objective of his investigations. Dissection and study were key to his development of a holistic knowledge of anatomy, which da Vinci believed was vital to the perfect rendering of the nude figures which he painted and drew.
Little by little, the traditional image of the human figure was uprooted and in its place new ways of interpreting the body developed. Contemporary artists relentlessly questioned the traditional codes of figure drawing, liberally reworking the representation of the body to create a new image that was dislocated, geometric, deformed and disfigured.
The body as an artistic subject is at once desired, fantasised, dreamt, transformed, deformed. For painters, photographers and sculptors alike the body represents a rite of passage in their artistic development. Many people say that they most appreciate the talents of an artists by way of their control over the complexity of the figure. For example, it's clear even in Matisse's later, more abstract collages that he had perfectly mastered the human form.
Representation of the body is fundamental to Western art: first and foremost because it suggests a representation of the self, and therefore affirms the artist's own existence and coexistence with the environment that surrounds them. At the beginning of art history, the only bodies represented were the gods, supernatural beings, and spirits who had taken on human form. The body, nude or clothed, is at once one of the most widely depicted and most deeply polemical subjects in Western art (think of the scandals provoked by Courbet's 'Origins of the World', or Renoir's 'Picnic on the Grass').
The body has always been the primary subject of an array of themes, and its history is rich and ancient. Initially, depiction of the body was closely linked to religion, where the Word became flesh in Genesis, but later in more secular times the arousal of the artist when faced with the body made for an equally popular theme. Latterly the notion of the body as an object of beauty was subverted by Cubism until depictions of bodies no longer bore any resemblance to reality or made any pretence of respecting the rules of proportion.
Finally, in modern art the body has taken on an abstract shape within space, becoming one with the environment. In some instances, the body has become the artist's own support, as with Klein's models. The body as an abstract concept is tangible in many different manifestations in art, even in pieces as unassuming as some of Rothko's paintings. It remains the subject of inexhaustible inspiration and eternal debate.