Human body
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The Small Hercule
Maxime Davoust
Sculpture - 38 x 15.5 x 14.5 cm Sculpture - 15 x 6.1 x 5.7 inch
$1,234
Angelique
Yevgeniy Repiashenko
Photography - 61 x 91 x 0.1 cm Photography - 24 x 35.8 x 0 inch
$1,655
Study for a Portrait of the Burlesque Queen II
Milburn-Foster
Painting - 116 x 73 cm Painting - 45.7 x 28.7 inch
$7,180
No57 SPIRIT Series
Yevgeniy Repiashenko
Photography - 91.4 x 91.4 x 0.3 cm Photography - 36 x 36 x 0.1 inch
$1,655
Marche des Méréides
Yevgeniy Repiashenko
Photography - 91 x 68 x 0.1 cm Photography - 35.8 x 26.8 x 0 inch
$1,655
Danseuse n°1
Christophe Beaufront (Rodolph)
Sculpture - 76 x 25 x 15 cm Sculpture - 29.9 x 9.8 x 5.9 inch
$1,346
Apesanteur - série Femmes
Christophe Beaufront (Rodolph)
Sculpture - 46 x 26 x 26 cm Sculpture - 18.1 x 10.2 x 10.2 inch
$1,616
Femme offerte, Monsieur curieux
Jean-Pierre Ceytaire
Painting - 48 x 98.5 x 4 cm Painting - 18.9 x 38.8 x 1.6 inch
$6,619
Sculpture de Vénus
Natalie Shiporina
Painting - 50 x 40 x 2 cm Painting - 19.7 x 15.7 x 0.8 inch
$1,683
Nitrogen Explosion
Danylo Movchan
Fine Art Drawings - 40 x 35 x 0.1 cm Fine Art Drawings - 15.7 x 13.8 x 0 inch
$449
Posing in the Garden
Dasha Pogodina
Painting - 100 x 90 x 2 cm Painting - 39.4 x 35.4 x 0.8 inch
$1,346
The Miracle of Christmas
Dasha Pogodina
Painting - 94 x 94 x 2 cm Painting - 37 x 37 x 0.8 inch
$1,683
Family Tapestry: Grandma and Sister’s Picnic
Dasha Pogodina
Painting - 100 x 90 x 2 cm Painting - 39.4 x 35.4 x 0.8 inch
$1,683
Entwined in Serenity
Dasha Pogodina
Painting - 80 x 80 x 2 cm Painting - 31.5 x 31.5 x 0.8 inch
$1,795
Driada - I feel the Earth
Dasha Pogodina
Painting - 80 x 80 x 2 cm Painting - 31.5 x 31.5 x 0.8 inch
$1,773
Don Quichotte Comes Back to Wisdom
Joanna Glazer
Painting - 100 x 70 x 2 cm Painting - 39.4 x 27.6 x 0.8 inch
$550 $275
Esus II
Christophe Charbonnel
Sculpture - 100 x 53 x 57 cm Sculpture - 39.4 x 20.9 x 22.4 inch
$50,485
Esclave II
Christophe Charbonnel
Sculpture - 38 x 54 x 24 cm Sculpture - 15 x 21.3 x 9.4 inch
$18,377
Nu à la couverture
Aimée De Courtozé
Painting - 60 x 80 x 2 cm Painting - 23.6 x 31.5 x 0.8 inch
$1,346
Love-large size
Muraz Martirosyan
Sculpture - 59 x 18 x 13 cm Sculpture - 23.2 x 7.1 x 5.1 inch
$5,049
The little self made man
Víctor Hugo Yáñez Piña
Sculpture - 27 x 13 x 11 cm Sculpture - 10.6 x 5.1 x 4.3 inch
$5,385
Boundolibe
Marie-Noëlle Deverre
Sculpture - 25 x 150 x 100 cm Sculpture - 9.8 x 59.1 x 39.4 inch
$1,683
Chanter et dancer
Lila Maroun Frem
Painting - 25 x 50 x 1 cm Painting - 9.8 x 19.7 x 0.4 inch
$3,366 $2,693
A night of midsummer
Rebecca Yunjeong Lee
Painting - 37 x 37 x 3 cm Painting - 14.6 x 14.6 x 1.2 inch
$615
Sans titre
Franciszek Starowieyski
Fine Art Drawings - 21 x 29.7 x 1 cm Fine Art Drawings - 8.3 x 11.7 x 0.4 inch
$673
Mare Playboy FotoErotica 2016
Grzegorz Sikorski
Photography - 60 x 45 x 0.1 cm Photography - 23.6 x 17.7 x 0 inch
$617
Nu Feminin 1 / Female Nude 1
Éliane Bonabel
Fine Art Drawings - 65 x 50 cm Fine Art Drawings - 25.6 x 19.7 inch
$1,795
Jeune Nuit
Yevgeniy Repiashenko
Photography - 70 x 70 x 2.5 cm Photography - 27.6 x 27.6 x 1 inch
$1,997
Divisible, indivisible
Olivier Massebeuf
Painting - 146 x 114 x 3 cm Painting - 57.5 x 44.9 x 1.2 inch
$2,019
Hollyhocks and butterflies
Ottelien Huckin
Painting - 45 x 32 x 1 cm Painting - 17.7 x 12.6 x 0.4 inch
$1,766
Eliza in the meadow
Ottelien Huckin
Painting - 45 x 32 x 1 cm Painting - 17.7 x 12.6 x 0.4 inch
$1,766
Lady in Bathtub
Erekle Tsuladze
Sculpture - 15 x 15 x 15 cm Sculpture - 5.9 x 5.9 x 5.9 inch
$1,683 $1,430
Approach
Yevgeniy Repiashenko
Photography - 120 x 96 x 0.1 cm Photography - 47.2 x 37.8 x 0 inch
$2,939
Une reconquête moderne de l’espace classique I.
Valerio Adami
Print - 40 x 30 cm Print - 15.7 x 11.8 inch
$280
Relaxing Blues
Hildegarde Handsaeme
Painting - 160 x 100 x 3 cm Painting - 63 x 39.4 x 1.2 inch
$9,648
Dittico tratto da la delicatezza delle radici che emersero
Rossella Mercedes
Fine Art Drawings - 30 x 80 x 0.2 cm Fine Art Drawings - 11.8 x 31.5 x 0.1 inch
$819
Pupille
Rossella Mercedes
Fine Art Drawings - 42 x 29.7 x 0.3 cm Fine Art Drawings - 16.5 x 11.7 x 0.1 inch
$561
libertà (a)morale (2 works)
Rossella Mercedes
Fine Art Drawings - 29.7 x 59.4 x 0.3 cm Fine Art Drawings - 11.7 x 23.4 x 0.1 inch
$1,010
La delicatezza delle radici che emersero (2 works)
Rossella Mercedes
Fine Art Drawings - 30 x 80 x 0.3 cm Fine Art Drawings - 11.8 x 31.5 x 0.1 inch
$774
La ronde des masques
Franck-Bernard Gaulier
Painting - 28 x 81 x 0.3 cm Painting - 11 x 31.9 x 0.1 inch
$561
More from Southend Beach
Manny Woodard
Sculpture - 59 x 19 x 19 cm Sculpture - 23.2 x 7.5 x 7.5 inch
$1,079
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.