Art History Soc x Art Soc: Nude/Life Drawing Discussion Panel
By Ilaria Bevan
On Thursday evening Art History Society and Art Society collaborated to organise the first Art History talk of this academic year, entitled “Life Drawing, Sexuality & the Body: a Conversation with Kate Cowcher, Marika Knowles and Neil Macdonald”. Topics ranged from the history of the nude in art, the impact of the viewer’s gaze and empowerment and were discussed by all those who took part.
Starting off the evening’s panel was the treasurer of the Art History Society, Eleanor Varley, who gave a succinct history of the nude body. Starting with the miniature Venus of Willendorf (c.30,000 BCE) to noted photographer Tyler Shields’ “Bondage” series (2020) she explored how ideas of the body have changed across time and how this has had a direct impact not only on how we as viewers perceive the naked body but also how artists have depicted it.
Venus of Willendorf, c.30,000 BCE
Following this, Lucia Guercio began the Q&A session which involved several professors from the Art History department - Dr. Marika Knowles, Dr. Kate Cowcher and Dr. Neil MacDonald. Having such a range of expertise featured on the panel was extremely interesting as each candidate offered different opinions on the questions posed to them by Lucia. The questions, directed to each panelist in turn, were extremely broad which allowed each panelist to interpret the question in a manner that showed off their interests well.
Tyler Shields, Rumer Willis for “Bondage” series, 2020
Dr. Cowcher, when asked about power dynamics between the model, artist and viewer noted that it was very dependent on the time and setting of the artwork, giving the example of Edvard Munch’s nude portrait of Sultan Abdul Karim. This example not only suggests how the male body was equally fetishised in art as the female body, but also how perhaps this objectification was uncomfortable for Munch which led to the later clothed versions. These portraits remind us to not focus just on the relationship between the nude and the voyeuristic spectator, but also how important the relationship between the artist and the model is to an artwork.
Edvard Munch, Standing Naked African, 1916
Conversely, when questioned about aesthetic concerns of the nude, Dr. Macdonald chose to focus on photographs taken by Robert Mapplethorpe in the 1980s that focused primarily on male nudes. His sitters, who were often black athletes, models, and dancers are incredibly confrontational and fetishistic, which conveys a variety of concerns about beauty and sexuality. Moreover, Dr. Macdonald demonstrated how the nude body within the Western artistic tradition is often concerned with idealism and is meant to be glorified as an aesthetic entity rather than a philosophical one.
Robert Mapplethorpe, Derrick Cross, 1983
Dr. Knowles discussed nineteenth century French art, talking about the relationship between the nude and the space it occupies in society, citing iconic images such as Manet’s Olympia (1963) and Ingres’ The Source (1956). She conveyed how paintings such as these illustrate the unquestioned presence of the unclothed body and how the nude was always “circumstantial” - placed in an environment for the gaze of the male audience present in the Salon institutions in Paris.
All three panellists provided great insight into a topic that is so widely discussed in art history and features so prominently in the works of many great artists. Their answers certainly resonated with me and made me think about how many different and complex interpretations the nude body has within the study of art.
Directly after the end of this conversation, Avery Gori, the Life Drawing Coordinator, began her Q&A with life drawing models from last academic year. I found this to be a particularly interesting addition to the evening as it provided an alternative perspective to concerns about nudity and the gaze, as well as some great insight into what it is like to be a life drawing model. Both models, when asked about their experience and how they felt about it, said that they were nervous, but their nerves were trampled by their excitement to engage with their bodies in a newfound sense of empowerment and confidence despite the daunting idea of holding a pose for an extended period of time. What was perhaps most insightful was how the models were enthusiastic to help students in their artistic endeavours and how strange, yet beautiful it was to see their body being depicted by others in such unique ways.
Overall, the conversations were fantastically engaging and provided an enormous range of insightful comments about the nude body, that I, and I am sure many of the other audience members, hadn’t thought about before. Although it may have been odd watching the event over Zoom from the comfort of my bedroom, my home became the site of an enthralling forum for ideas about a topic that is at the forefront of art now and has been throughout time.