Human body
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Manufactura 3
Oriol Texidor
Photography - 40 x 50 x 7 cm Photography - 15.7 x 19.7 x 2.8 inch
$1,414
Hommage à Picasso
Enric Cormenzana
Painting - 67 x 48 x 1 cm Painting - 26.4 x 18.9 x 0.4 inch
$1,683
Emmy et seneçon
Marie Labat
Fine Art Drawings - 60 x 40 x 0.1 cm Fine Art Drawings - 23.6 x 15.7 x 0 inch
$539
Dédoublement 57/200
Marie-Madeleine Gautier
Sculpture - 11 x 9 x 12 cm Sculpture - 4.3 x 3.5 x 4.7 inch
$1,683
Caveman II
Christophe Paucelier
Photography - 40 x 60 x 2 cm Photography - 15.7 x 23.6 x 0.8 inch
$1,111
Femme cheval
Caroline Crozat
Fine Art Drawings - 100 x 65 x 0.5 cm Fine Art Drawings - 39.4 x 25.6 x 0.2 inch
$1,571
Fluorine Slave portrait.
López del Espino
Painting - 160 x 100 x 3 cm Painting - 63 x 39.4 x 1.2 inch
$1,683
Hunted-Hunter#1
Virginie Groleau
Sculpture - 30 x 16 x 18 cm Sculpture - 11.8 x 6.3 x 7.1 inch
$3,366
Sans titre, ni mots, ni voix
Laurent Anastay-Ponsolle
Painting - 74 x 93 x 2 cm Painting - 29.1 x 36.6 x 0.8 inch
$2,188
Simones
Claire Bonnet-Masimbert
Sculpture - 60 x 24 x 24 cm Sculpture - 23.6 x 9.4 x 9.4 inch
$1,010
Nemo propheta in patria
Derek Overfield
Painting - 152.4 x 139.7 x 5.1 cm Painting - 60 x 55 x 2 inch
$2,045
Telltale
Solomon Jamy Brown
Photography - 70 x 50 x 0.05 cm Photography - 27.6 x 19.7 x 0 inch
$1,289
Portraits de mains
Jean Robert (Ipoustéguy)
Fine Art Drawings - 64 x 49 x 0.5 cm Fine Art Drawings - 25.2 x 19.3 x 0.2 inch
$617
Hymne à l'amour
Emilie Teillaud
Sculpture - 42 x 22 x 12 cm Sculpture - 16.5 x 8.7 x 4.7 inch
$2,132
Languages of Body Part 1
Chamy Shin
Painting - 52 x 78 x 0.3 cm Painting - 20.5 x 30.7 x 0.1 inch
$2,244
People Conversation
Chas Laborde
Fine Art Drawings - 31 x 20.3 x 0.2 cm Fine Art Drawings - 12.2 x 8 x 0.1 inch
$729
Princesse slave
Roxane Petitier
Photography - 90 x 60 x 0.5 cm Photography - 35.4 x 23.6 x 0.2 inch
$1,066
Corps et Ame #191121_009
Jérôme Rapin
Fine Art Drawings - 73 x 53 x 0.1 cm Fine Art Drawings - 28.7 x 20.9 x 0 inch
$1,346
Surreal Dream in Blue
Alice Zilberberg
Photography - 61 x 50.8 x 5.1 cm Photography - 24 x 20 x 2 inch
$950
Untitled #13, Fall Off Wonderland series
Yang Du
Photography - 80 x 60 cm Photography - 31.5 x 23.6 inch
$2,244
Untitled
Verena Waddell
Fine Art Drawings - 56 x 76 x 1 cm Fine Art Drawings - 22 x 29.9 x 0.4 inch
$2,244
Alter Ego (after Roger Ballen)
Roger Ballen
Design - 80.5 x 20.5 x 1.2 cm Design - 31.7 x 8.1 x 0.5 inch
$1,402
Chameleon - What’s Your Color Today?
Carola De Armas
Photography - 60 x 90 cm Photography - 23.6 x 35.4 inch
$830
Painted Portrait
Djinane Alsuwayeh
Photography - 100 x 82 x 1 cm Photography - 39.4 x 32.3 x 0.4 inch
$1,885
La danseuse au bras coupé
Evelyne Postic
Photography - 29 x 23 x 1 cm Photography - 11.4 x 9.1 x 0.4 inch
$673
Figure of Man
Marcel Vertès
Fine Art Drawings - 24 x 22 x 0.1 cm Fine Art Drawings - 9.4 x 8.7 x 0 inch
$606
Blue mood 5
Yannick Fournié
Photography - 140 x 107 x 1.5 cm Photography - 55.1 x 42.1 x 0.6 inch
$4,039
Self - Consciousness
Renata Dyk
Sculpture - 37 x 22.5 x 15.5 cm Sculpture - 14.6 x 8.9 x 6.1 inch
$2,277
Les petits oiseaux
Valérie Auriel
Painting - 100 x 81 x 2 cm Painting - 39.4 x 31.9 x 0.8 inch
$2,143
Smooth Operator
John Herbert Wright
Painting - 137.2 x 147.3 x 2.5 cm Painting - 54 x 58 x 1 inch
$10,000
Epicentre, Olympic Games Beijing
Alexander de Cadenet
Print - 70 x 94.5 x 0.1 cm Print - 27.6 x 37.2 x 0 inch
$673
Being Earth V
Guillaume Liffran
Painting - 44.5 x 37 x 0.3 cm Painting - 17.5 x 14.6 x 0.1 inch
$393
Forme, luci, il colore
Francesca Diana Martines
Painting - 46 x 28 x 0.2 cm Painting - 18.1 x 11 x 0.1 inch
$393
L'oeil de la Nature
Emilie Teillaud
Painting - 97 x 80 x 3 cm Painting - 38.2 x 31.5 x 1.2 inch
$2,132
Gold Mademoiselle Lace Steel Sculpture
Vyki
Sculpture - 55 x 45 x 30 cm Sculpture - 21.7 x 17.7 x 11.8 inch
$5,049
Academia (half life)
Paige Bradley
Sculpture - 147.3 x 55.9 x 106.7 cm Sculpture - 58 x 22 x 42 inch
$26,000
Servitude, Tome 3, Planche 31
Eric Bourgier
Fine Art Drawings - 65 x 47 cm Fine Art Drawings - 25.6 x 18.5 inch
$4,488
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.