Human body
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A problem occurred
I felt I had become a different person
Ngahina Belton-Bodsworth
Painting - 21 x 56 x 3 cm Painting - 8.3 x 22 x 1.2 inch
$2,883
Sans titre
Andrée Vilar
Fine Art Drawings - 50 x 65 x 1 cm Fine Art Drawings - 19.7 x 25.6 x 0.4 inch
$3,590
A woman for every size - Ancient pleasures
Andrea Vandoni
Painting - 30 x 150 x 4 cm Painting - 11.8 x 59.1 x 1.6 inch
$2,356 $2,003
Spirit
Rossella Mercedes
Fine Art Drawings - 23 x 30.5 x 0.2 cm Fine Art Drawings - 9.1 x 12 x 0.1 inch
$135
Behind the muse
Vakhtang Khelashvili
Painting - 90 x 120 x 2.2 cm Painting - 35.4 x 47.2 x 0.9 inch
$2,468
Changing room
Suthamma (Ta) Byrne
Painting - 120 x 100 x 4 cm Painting - 47.2 x 39.4 x 1.6 inch
$3,893
Try walking in my shoes.
Elena Shichko
Painting - 80 x 100 x 2 cm Painting - 31.5 x 39.4 x 0.8 inch
$3,029
Aphrodite 350 BC
Gavin O'Donoghue
Painting - 80 x 68.1 x 2 cm Painting - 31.5 x 26.8 x 0.8 inch
$786
H0427 – The crusher
Idan Wizen
Photography - 90 x 60 x 0.1 cm Photography - 35.4 x 23.6 x 0 inch
$561
F0488 – The surprising
Idan Wizen
Photography - 90 x 60 x 0.1 cm Photography - 35.4 x 23.6 x 0 inch
$841
F0564 – The dauntless
Idan Wizen
Photography - 120 x 80 x 0.1 cm Photography - 47.2 x 31.5 x 0 inch
$2,019
F0500 – The dancer
Idan Wizen
Photography - 120 x 80 x 0.1 cm Photography - 47.2 x 31.5 x 0 inch
$2,019
H0430 – The last one
Idan Wizen
Photography - 120 x 80 x 0.1 cm Photography - 47.2 x 31.5 x 0 inch
$2,019
F0479 - The fantasized
Idan Wizen
Photography - 120 x 80 x 0.1 cm Photography - 47.2 x 31.5 x 0 inch
$2,019
H0384 - The secretive
Idan Wizen
Photography - 120 x 80 x 0.1 cm Photography - 47.2 x 31.5 x 0 inch
$1,346
F0547 - The scared
Idan Wizen
Photography - 90 x 60 x 0.1 cm Photography - 35.4 x 23.6 x 0 inch
$1,346
F0555 - The duchess
Idan Wizen
Photography - 120 x 80 x 0.1 cm Photography - 47.2 x 31.5 x 0 inch
$1,346
Passive
Olena Siniuhina
Fine Art Drawings - 18 x 24 x 0.5 cm Fine Art Drawings - 7.1 x 9.4 x 0.2 inch
$90
Entre deux mondes
Dominique Dardek
Sculpture - 57 x 30 x 16 cm Sculpture - 22.4 x 11.8 x 6.3 inch
$4,824
Lost and found
Cécile Plaisance
Photography - 70 x 57 x 4 cm Photography - 27.6 x 22.4 x 1.6 inch
$8,414
Interpretation: Rubens (2)
Edin Mustafic
Photography - 75 x 50 x 2 cm Photography - 29.5 x 19.7 x 0.8 inch
$1,178
Mademoiselle A
Antoniucci Volti
Sculpture - 34 x 54 x 28 cm Sculpture - 13.4 x 21.3 x 11 inch
$31,413
Venus
Marie-Madeleine Vitrolles
Sculpture - 142 x 22 x 22 cm Sculpture - 55.9 x 8.7 x 8.7 inch
$4,263
Série Adam et Eve - 2/1
Line Taarnberg
Photography - 30 x 30 x 1 cm Photography - 11.8 x 11.8 x 0.4 inch
$449
Strippers in a Club, Atlanta, Georgia
Leonard Freed
Photography - 27.9 x 35.6 cm Photography - 11 x 14 inch
$5,000
Sans titre
Bruce Tchibozo
Fine Art Drawings - 32.5 x 50 cm Fine Art Drawings - 12.8 x 19.7 inch
$673
Nisus et Euryale - Énéide de Virgile - série Mythologie romaine
Henri Mahé dit HIM
Painting - 73 x 60 x 2 cm Painting - 28.7 x 23.6 x 0.8 inch
$3,506
Kouros Triptych 01
Michael James O'Brien
Photography - 61 x 152.4 x 0.3 cm Photography - 24 x 60 x 0.1 inch
$12,000
Excentricité ordinaire Hervé tatoué
Arnaud Baumann
Photography - 80 x 80 x 0.1 cm Photography - 31.5 x 31.5 x 0 inch
$3,702
Man at Window
Anyck Alvarez Kerloch
Painting - 180.3 x 114.3 x 2.5 cm Painting - 71 x 45 x 1 inch
$3,050
Les deux rouquines
Victorine Follana
Painting - 100 x 81 x 4 cm Painting - 39.4 x 31.9 x 1.6 inch
$2,805
Langue de danseuse
Arnaud Baumann
Photography - 120 x 80 x 0.1 cm Photography - 47.2 x 31.5 x 0 inch
$3,254
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.