Human body
Save your search and find it in your favorites
Save your search to find it quickly
Saved search
Your search is accessible from the favorites tab > My favorite searches
Unsaved search
A problem occurred
Forêt nocturne
Brigitte Thonhauser-Merk
Painting - 46 x 38 x 2 cm Painting - 18.1 x 15 x 0.8 inch
$284
Palais du vieux roi - Se lever dans l’obscurité
Toshihiko Ikeda
Print - 108.5 x 79.5 x 0.2 cm Print - 42.7 x 31.3 x 0.1 inch
$3,979
Ninja & Skate [Die Antwoord] (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
$284
Unir jusqu'au ciel
Emilie Teillaud
Painting - 195 x 97 x 4 cm Painting - 76.8 x 38.2 x 1.6 inch
$6,707
Trial to flying-I
Stanislav Bojankov
Painting - 60 x 90 x 0.1 cm Painting - 23.6 x 35.4 x 0 inch
$796
Enfant revenant des champs. Ethiopie
Dominique Leroy
Photography - 70 x 90 x 2 cm Photography - 27.6 x 35.4 x 0.8 inch
$1,591
Huile et Rouille
Dominique Leroy
Photography - 70 x 90 x 2 cm Photography - 27.6 x 35.4 x 0.8 inch
$1,591
Relax pour les zèbres de Tanzanie
Dominique Leroy
Photography - 70 x 90 x 2 cm Photography - 27.6 x 35.4 x 0.8 inch
$1,478
Ourson brun. Quelle chaleur. Canada
Dominique Leroy
Photography - 70 x 90 x 2 cm Photography - 27.6 x 35.4 x 0.8 inch
$1,478
Droit dans mes bottes. Inde
Dominique Leroy
Photography - 70 x 90 x 2 cm Photography - 27.6 x 35.4 x 0.8 inch
$1,478
Œil d'éléphant. Inde du nord
Dominique Leroy
Photography - 70 x 90 x 2 cm Photography - 27.6 x 35.4 x 0.8 inch
$1,478
Une bonne sieste. Lémuriens
Dominique Leroy
Photography - 90 x 70 x 2 cm Photography - 35.4 x 27.6 x 0.8 inch
$1,478
Perroquet Ara. Pantanal. Brésil
Dominique Leroy
Photography - 70 x 90 x 2 cm Photography - 27.6 x 35.4 x 0.8 inch
$1,478
Paon à la chasse. Inde
Dominique Leroy
Photography - 70 x 90 x 2 cm Photography - 27.6 x 35.4 x 0.8 inch
$1,478
Fin de journée sur les ballons
Dominique Leroy
Photography - 70 x 90 x 2 cm Photography - 27.6 x 35.4 x 0.8 inch
$1,591
Aube et envol de Montgolfières
Dominique Leroy
Photography - 70 x 90 x 2 cm Photography - 27.6 x 35.4 x 0.8 inch
$1,591
Envol de Montgolfières
Dominique Leroy
Photography - 70 x 90 x 2 cm Photography - 27.6 x 35.4 x 0.8 inch
$1,591
Jeune fille revenant du champs. Ethiopie
Dominique Leroy
Photography - 70 x 90 x 2 cm Photography - 27.6 x 35.4 x 0.8 inch
$1,478
Indiens de la Vallée de L'Omo. Dassanech. Ethiopie
Dominique Leroy
Photography - 70 x 90 x 2 cm Photography - 27.6 x 35.4 x 0.8 inch
$1,478
Regard de buffle. Tanzanie
Dominique Leroy
Photography - 70 x 90 x 2 cm Photography - 27.6 x 35.4 x 0.8 inch
$909
L'heure de la sieste. Ourson Brun. Canada.
Dominique Leroy
Photography - 70 x 90 x 2 cm Photography - 27.6 x 35.4 x 0.8 inch
$909
Guépard Protecteur. Parc de Tarangire. Tanzanie
Dominique Leroy
Photography - 90 x 70 x 2 cm Photography - 35.4 x 27.6 x 0.8 inch
$909
Mère et fils. Singe. Inde du nord.
Dominique Leroy
Photography - 90 x 70 x 2 cm Photography - 35.4 x 27.6 x 0.8 inch
$909
Troupeau de Zèbres dans le parc de Tarangire. Tanzanie
Dominique Leroy
Photography - 70 x 90 x 2 cm Photography - 27.6 x 35.4 x 0.8 inch
$909
Gangster Lady. Happy End
Mariana Gumeniuc
Painting - 100 x 120 x 4 cm Painting - 39.4 x 47.2 x 1.6 inch
$12,013
The Blue Suit
Anyck Alvarez Kerloch
Painting - 64.8 x 47.8 x 0.3 cm Painting - 25.5 x 18.8 x 0.1 inch
$490
Slave boy breaking chains
López del Espino
Sculpture - 100 x 25 x 40 cm Sculpture - 39.4 x 9.8 x 15.7 inch
$7,957
With Yves Coat I Archival pigment on canvas intervened by the artist
Efren Isaza
Painting - 172.7 x 127 x 5.1 cm Painting - 68 x 50 x 2 inch
$15,000
"Standing Ballet", Archival pigment print mounted on aluminum intervened
Efren Isaza
Painting - 165.1 x 121.9 x 2.5 cm Painting - 65 x 48 x 1 inch
$13,000
Fashion is image
Akif Hakan
Photography - 150 x 100 x 3 cm Photography - 59.1 x 39.4 x 1.2 inch
$9,094
Dangerous games 5
Akif Hakan
Photography - 100 x 150 x 3 cm Photography - 39.4 x 59.1 x 1.2 inch
$9,094
Sexy, sleazy, seedy films
Akif Hakan
Photography - 100 x 150 x 3 cm Photography - 39.4 x 59.1 x 1.2 inch
$9,094
Orion, Naked cowboy
Earl of Bushwick
Painting - 61 x 45 x 2 cm Painting - 24 x 17.7 x 0.8 inch
$6,656
Love Searching for Love
Akande John
Painting - 50.8 x 35.6 x 2.5 cm Painting - 20 x 14 x 1 inch
$400
Série 'graphiques' Ma terre, mes racines - solidaires
Michèle Magnien (Mileg)
Painting - 30 x 30 x 3.5 cm Painting - 11.8 x 11.8 x 1.4 inch
$284
The meeting place
Aziseh Emmanuel
Painting - 150 x 150 x 2.5 cm Painting - 59.1 x 59.1 x 1 inch
$6,480
Don't Tell Mamma #2
Koray Erkaya
Photography - 99.1 x 76.2 x 0.3 cm Photography - 39 x 30 x 0.1 inch
$5,750
Autumn Water Lilly
Anders Nils
Photography - 75 x 148 x 5 cm Photography - 29.5 x 58.3 x 2 inch
$14,778
Série: Natura facit saltus - voyageur
Edgar Lissel
Photography - 90 x 120 x 0.1 cm Photography - 35.4 x 47.2 x 0 inch
$9,094
Angel
Hilbertas Jatkevicius
Sculpture - 19 x 14 x 11.5 cm Sculpture - 7.5 x 5.5 x 4.5 inch
$273 $246
Intime Résidence #2
Laurent Anastay-Ponsolle
Fine Art Drawings - 76 x 56 x 0.1 cm Fine Art Drawings - 29.9 x 22 x 0 inch
$1,080
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.