Human body
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Beauty in the sleeping room
Nico Vrielink
Painting - 85 x 65 x 2 cm Painting - 33.5 x 25.6 x 0.8 inch
$4,470
On the way to Arcadia - II
Tsanko Tsankoff
Painting - 100 x 120 x 2 cm Painting - 39.4 x 47.2 x 0.8 inch
$2,829
Amorphisms (juntos) Diptych
Javier Rey
Photography - 55 x 84 x 0.3 cm Photography - 21.7 x 33.1 x 0.1 inch
$2,100
Connection - We Are Connected
Joanna Glazer
Painting - 80 x 60 x 2 cm Painting - 31.5 x 23.6 x 0.8 inch
$554
Engulfment (Mosquera 1)
Javier Rey
Photography - 150 x 55 x 0.1 cm Photography - 59.1 x 21.7 x 0 inch
$2,430
She received a kiss in the soul
Reinaldo Chavez
Painting - 27.5 x 22 x 0.3 cm Painting - 10.8 x 8.7 x 0.1 inch
$328
Butterfly Effect
Rakhmet Redzhepov (Ramzi)
Painting - 110 x 80 x 3 cm Painting - 43.3 x 31.5 x 1.2 inch
$3,282
Persefone - Simetría natural
Pere Bennàssar Obrador
Painting - 30 x 30 x 2 cm Painting - 11.8 x 11.8 x 0.8 inch
$1,245
Whispers of midnight
Zakhar Shevchuk
Fine Art Drawings - 20 x 28 x 0.1 cm Fine Art Drawings - 7.9 x 11 x 0 inch
$339
Ink album (Nude posing)
Zakhar Shevchuk
Fine Art Drawings - 28 x 20 x 0.1 cm Fine Art Drawings - 11 x 7.9 x 0 inch
$339
Sentida-1-99
Luis Miguel Valdes
Fine Art Drawings - 35.1 x 30 cm Fine Art Drawings - 13.8 x 11.8 inch
$600
fluctuaT
Louis Blanc
Photography - 70 x 70 x 0.1 cm Photography - 27.6 x 27.6 x 0 inch
$3,395 $3,055
La Esencia de la Vida 08
Ivanna Alejandra Sanchez Moretti
Photography - 40 x 53 cm Photography - 15.7 x 20.9 inch
$679
Engulfment Cartagena 9
Javier Rey
Photography - 110 x 165 x 0.3 cm Photography - 43.3 x 65 x 0.1 inch
$2,550
Trois mouvements d’Ailine I
Yiyan Zhou
Sculpture - 18 x 17 x 15 cm Sculpture - 7.1 x 6.7 x 5.9 inch
$2,490
Skins 005
Ivanna Alejandra Sanchez Moretti
Photography - 53 x 40 cm Photography - 20.9 x 15.7 inch
$679
Rayas Three
Ricky Cohete
Photography - 152.4 x 101.6 x 0.3 cm Photography - 60 x 40 x 0.1 inch
$6,500
One Afternoon at Four O'clock (Diptych), Large
Michael James O'Brien
Photography - 101.6 x 152.4 x 0.3 cm Photography - 40 x 60 x 0.1 inch
$12,000
Angel IX
Laurence Winram
Photography - 84.1 x 59.4 x 0.2 cm Photography - 33.1 x 23.4 x 0.1 inch
$639
Nikita III
Laurence Winram
Photography - 84.1 x 59.4 x 0.2 cm Photography - 33.1 x 23.4 x 0.1 inch
$639
Nu lettriste enrichi par le temps
Maurice Lemaître
Photography - 30 x 40 x 0.1 cm Photography - 11.8 x 15.7 x 0 inch
$792
Nu lettriste enrichi par le temps
Maurice Lemaître
Photography - 40 x 30 x 0.1 cm Photography - 15.7 x 11.8 x 0 inch
$622
Dripping femininity
Dzovig Arnelian
Painting - 100 x 100 x 1 cm Painting - 39.4 x 39.4 x 0.4 inch
$636
Photographie "Arche"
Franck Leclerc
Photography - 40 x 40 x 1 cm Photography - 15.7 x 15.7 x 0.4 inch
$781
Interpretation: Rubens
Edin Mustafic
Photography - 75 x 50 x 2 cm Photography - 29.5 x 19.7 x 0.8 inch
$1,188
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.