Human body
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Lee au coucher de soleil
The opium smoking white elephant
Photography - 60 x 40 cm Photography - 23.6 x 15.7 inch
€800
Jittaporn nu de pleine lune
The opium smoking white elephant
Photography - 60 x 40 x 2 cm Photography - 23.6 x 15.7 x 0.8 inch
€800
Le voyage du peuple bleu
Yvan Genest
Painting - 152.4 x 152.4 x 5.1 cm Painting - 60 x 60 x 2 inch
€10,094
Oto-confidences
Claire Bonnet-Masimbert
Sculpture - 39 x 26.5 x 35.5 cm Sculpture - 15.4 x 10.4 x 14 inch
€2,000
Solor and Nikiya under Fireworks
Joanna Glazer
Painting - 100 x 80 x 2 cm Painting - 39.4 x 31.5 x 0.8 inch
€290
Woman nude, Pop art - Antifragile
Dasha Pogodina
Painting - 100 x 80 x 2 cm Painting - 39.4 x 31.5 x 0.8 inch
€1,580
Hollyhocks and butterflies
Ottelien Huckin
Painting - 45 x 32 x 1 cm Painting - 17.7 x 12.6 x 0.4 inch
€1,662
Eliza in the meadow
Ottelien Huckin
Painting - 45 x 32 x 1 cm Painting - 17.7 x 12.6 x 0.4 inch
€1,662
Nude woman naive modern art - Warrior
Dasha Pogodina
Painting - 75 x 80 x 2 cm Painting - 29.5 x 31.5 x 0.8 inch
€1,350
Towards the Real me
Dasha Pogodina
Painting - 80 x 80 x 2 cm Painting - 31.5 x 31.5 x 0.8 inch
€1,580
I not afraid anymore
Dasha Pogodina
Painting - 80 x 80 x 2 cm Painting - 31.5 x 31.5 x 0.8 inch
€1,580
Approach
Yevgeniy Repiashenko
Photography - 120 x 96 x 0.1 cm Photography - 47.2 x 37.8 x 0 inch
€2,620
Germinal h cm 40 (blue patina) (bronze)
Antoniucci Volti
Sculpture - 40 x 26 x 27 cm Sculpture - 15.7 x 10.2 x 10.6 inch
€11,500
Reflection, Melancholy serie
Olha Vlasova
Painting - 100 x 60 x 2 cm Painting - 39.4 x 23.6 x 0.8 inch
€1,500
Danse Du Feu (Réf. 121)
Jérôme Mesnager
Painting - 100 x 81 x 2 cm Painting - 39.4 x 31.9 x 0.8 inch
€2,800
Amorphisms (él)
Javier Rey
Photography - 80 x 60 x 0.3 cm Photography - 31.5 x 23.6 x 0.1 inch
€1,427
Find the nude 1
Gina Vor
Fine Art Drawings - 70 x 50 x 0.1 cm Fine Art Drawings - 27.6 x 19.7 x 0 inch
€350
Nu 31
Thomas Witte
Fine Art Drawings - 64 x 50 x 0.2 cm Fine Art Drawings - 25.2 x 19.7 x 0.1 inch
€800
Nu 30
Thomas Witte
Fine Art Drawings - 64 x 50 x 0.2 cm Fine Art Drawings - 25.2 x 19.7 x 0.1 inch
€800
Find the nude 4
Gina Vor
Fine Art Drawings - 70 x 50 x 0.1 cm Fine Art Drawings - 27.6 x 19.7 x 0 inch
€350
Find the nude 3
Gina Vor
Fine Art Drawings - 70 x 50 x 0.1 cm Fine Art Drawings - 27.6 x 19.7 x 0 inch
€350
Find the nude 2
Gina Vor
Fine Art Drawings - 70 x 50 x 0.1 cm Fine Art Drawings - 27.6 x 19.7 x 0 inch
€350
More from Southend Beach
Manny Woodard
Sculpture - 59 x 19 x 19 cm Sculpture - 23.2 x 7.5 x 7.5 inch
€1,016
Amorphisms (solo)
Javier Rey
Photography - 50 x 50 x 0.3 cm Photography - 19.7 x 19.7 x 0.1 inch
€1,087
Engulfment (Tatacoa 4)
Javier Rey
Photography - 80 x 53 x 0.3 cm Photography - 31.5 x 20.9 x 0.1 inch
€1,310
Engulfment (Tatacoa 3)
Javier Rey
Photography - 53 x 80 x 0.3 cm Photography - 20.9 x 31.5 x 0.1 inch
€1,310
Engulfment (Nacional 3)
Javier Rey
Photography - 80 x 53 x 0.3 cm Photography - 31.5 x 20.9 x 0.1 inch
€1,310
Engulfment (Nacional 2)
Javier Rey
Photography - 80 x 53 x 0.3 cm Photography - 31.5 x 20.9 x 0.1 inch
€1,310
Engulfment (Mosquera 5)
Javier Rey
Photography - 53 x 80 x 0.3 cm Photography - 20.9 x 31.5 x 0.1 inch
€1,310
Engulfment (Mosquera 1a)
Javier Rey
Photography - 110 x 106 x 0.3 cm Photography - 43.3 x 41.7 x 0.1 inch
€1,310
Engulfment (Córdoba 5)
Javier Rey
Photography - 53 x 80 x 0.3 cm Photography - 20.9 x 31.5 x 0.1 inch
€1,310
I am dissolved #2
Javier Rey
Photography - 90 x 60 x 0.1 cm Photography - 35.4 x 23.6 x 0 inch
€1,310
Errabundeo (Córdoba 1)
Javier Rey
Photography - 53 x 80 x 0.3 cm Photography - 20.9 x 31.5 x 0.1 inch
€1,310
The boys in the crowd
Ritchelly Oliveira
Painting - 196 x 191 x 3 cm Painting - 77.2 x 75.2 x 1.2 inch
€21,700
The Boy and the bird in the chest
Ritchelly Oliveira
Painting - 186 x 146 x 3 cm Painting - 73.2 x 57.5 x 1.2 inch
€18,340
In between waves
Ritchelly Oliveira
Painting - 121 x 86 x 3 cm Painting - 47.6 x 33.9 x 1.2 inch
€10,600
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.