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.

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Human body

Angèle

Simone

Continent B, gravure originale

Femme rêvée à la pierre

L'Oiseau Damoclès (Étude)

Icare

Sorcellerie - Série visuels décalés

Hand of the artist

La vie d'artiste

Esprits dans mon atelier

The Tenth Muse

La Vista (The View)

Uschi Obermaier

Fossil Fool

Nude Carla Bruni a genoux, Harper Bazar

Pulse

Veiled Passion (Giclée Print)

Madame (Giclée Print)

Le poivrot

Breeze

Into the light

Mood

New York trip

In the Zone

Golden Ghost (small)

Sieger

Mile pas

Don't Tell Mamma #2

Arte Para Curarte Senidros

Vovlusos

Ascension

The Party

Together

U.S ballet dance-2

Back lighting, Blue and Green. Diptych

Should we love again or not ?

Please feed on my love

Boccacce (trittico)

Pretty painting

I see the light

Rastas

La Esencia de la Vida 013

Convergence

Matador

Suspended

Cig

Dance and peace

Modella in rosso. The image expresses itself:

Immagine 3

Autumn Water Lilly

Untitled XXXIX. From the Series Chiromorphose

Untitled XXXVII. From the Series Chiromorphose

Untitled XXXIII. From the Series Chiromorphose

Untitled XXXII. From the Series Chiromorphose

Untitled XXIX. From the Series Chiromorphose

Untitled XXV. From the Series Chiromorphose

Untitled XXI. From the Series Chiromorphose

Untitled XX. From the Series Chiromorphose

Untitled XIX. From the Series Chiromorphose

Untitled XVIII. From the series Chiromorphose.

Untitled XVII. From the Series Chiromorphose

Untitled XV. From the Series Chiromorphose

Untitled XIII. Framed. From the series chiromorphose

Untitled X, Untitled XXXIX, and Untitled XXIX

Untitled I, Untitled II, and Untitled XI

Untitled XIX, XXI, and XX