Nudes. Jp. A. Calosse
Чтение книги онлайн.
Читать онлайн книгу Nudes - Jp. A. Calosse страница 3
Название: Nudes
Автор: Jp. A. Calosse
Издательство: Parkstone International Publishing
Жанр: Иностранные языки
Серия: Mega Square
isbn: 978-1-78160-826-5
isbn:
Cleopatra
Artemisia Gentileschi, c. 1610–1612
oil on canvas, 118 × 181 cm
Amadeo Morandotti, Milan
The body is stripped of all coverings preventing it from being regarded as a form of pure expression. The human body merges with the very structure of the painting.
Every brushstroke has its own temperature, which depends on proximity to or distance from the instinctive. Some manuscripts are close to it and others are far from it. A drawing by Pascin or Geiger expresses the delirium of Dionysian passion much more vividly than a drawing by Bellmer or Bayros.
Jupiter and Callisto
Peter Paul Rubens, 1613
oil on canvas, 126.5 × 187 cm
Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister, Cassel
There are feverish drawings vibrating with energy and there is also a flow of the line that congeals it all in place. Pascin and Bellmer should be considered studies in contrast. Both penetrate the most chaotic and mixed up spheres of eroticism. Yet, where Bellmer safeguards himself with the cold flame of intellect and a disciplined stroke almost reminiscent of the precise cut of a surgeon, Pascin smolders and burns in the depicted object.
Venus and Adonis
Peter Paul Rubens, c. 1614
oil on wood, 83 × 90.5 cm
The Hermitage Museum, St Petersburg
His eroticism is not cerebral; it is seated in the tips of his fingers. Pascin’s erotic moments evaporate like the fragrance of a morbid perfume. The erotic character of a work of art is more likely determined by its manner of execution than its subject. The passionate style dominates. The dialectic of erotic art banishes what it evokes. That which has been placed under taboos is violated in fantasy.
The Union of Earth and Water
Peter Paul Rubens, c. 1618
oil on canvas, 222.5 × 180.5 cm
The Hermitage Museum, St Petersburg
The artist attacks social norms but also yields to them at the same time. Because it can only be enjoyed via the detour of sensitivity and the powers of imagination, the threatening aspect of sexuality is tempered. It is not experienced but channelled through artistic creativity. Thus, the civilizing process is the final winner after all, which – in the name of reason – transforms the human form from an untamed body of lust into a disciplined body of work, through the chronic powers of sexuality.
Satyr and Nymph
Nicolas Poussin, c. 1630
oil on canvas, 77.5 × 62.5 cm
Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts, Moscow
“Art,” said Freud, “is an indirect way for dreams to become reality.” This is relevant to the artist, for whom eroticism is one of the most powerful drives for creativity. The same conflicts that push other individuals into neurosis here constitute the driving force of art. Aesthetic creativity offers an imaginary gratification of those unconscious forces that are fulfilled by being substituted with creativity. Aristotle’s understanding of the cathartic, of the purifying and salutary role of art is here illustrated: a healing of the passions through passion.
Angelica and Medoro
Jacques Blanchard, early 1630s
oil on canvas, 121.6 × 175.9 cm
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
Sensuality is said to be present in any art, even if its subject is not always of a sexual nature. That means any art is erotic art. “The birth of art in general,” writes Eduard Fuchs, the old master of the history of erotic art, “also signifies in particular the birth of erotic art. This, however, proves nothing more than the fact that eroticism as such is the primary root of all art.“ The claim in bourgeois aesthetics that great art can inspire detachment at best is one Fuchs considers a prejudice of moralism.
Drunken Hercules
Peter Paul Rubens, 1634
oil on wood, 220 × 200 cm
Gemäldegalerie, Dresden
Lucas Cranach the Elder (1472–1553)
True knightly love could have nothing in common with the desire to possess a woman. The knight was a vassal to the lady of his heart. His love took the form of selfless fidelity, self-sacrificing service and courteous attentions. This ideal of elevated love was contrasted with base love – a blind, consuming passion and elementary satisfaction of lust. Love was a trial on the knight’s path to moral perfection between the poles of virtue and vice.
Danäe
Rembrandt, 1636
oil on canvas, 158 × 202.5 cm
The Hermitage Museum, St Petersburg
Every step took him and his chosen lady closer to salvation or perdition of the soul, to paradise or to hell.
That, in brief, was the code of courtly love in its German interpretation. That strict, elegant ethic did not, however accord with marital morals which are founded not on the separation of the spiritual and the sensual but on a life-creating harmony of the two. In the family, common sense reigns supreme: moderation is more important than anything!
Venus and Cupid (The Rokeby Venus)
Diego Velázquez, 1649–1651
oil on canvas, 122.5 × 177 cm
National Gallery, London
From this point of view both extremes in love – abstention and intemperance – are equally unfitting. Eve, Delilah, Bathsheba, Solomon’s concubines, Judith, Salome, Venus, Diana, Omphale, Phyllis, Lucretia, young women exploiting besotted old men – they all warned men against losing their reason to feminine charms. Cranach was the first German artist to introduce this theme into easel painting.