Illustration by Matteo Malinverno
Art Thou Nude?
the bare essentials of modeling in the buff
PrintIt’s slightly chilly. You’re standing absolutely still as a group of students carefully studies every inch of you. Oh, and you’re naked.
For most of us, this might bring up residual anxiety from that all-too-familiar nightmare of showing up to school in only your birthday suit. But for a nude model working for a studio art class or a professional artist, this is a regular day on the job.
The nude has always been a subject of both classicism and controversy. Artists began working with nude models during the Renaissance, as the human body became a symbol of divine creation and beauty. While the nude is often associated with feminine ideals, Anne Higonnet, professor of art history at Barnard, notes, “The extent to which they [artists] favored men vs. women has varied over time. In the last years of the 18th century and the early years of the 19th, for instance, the gorgeous male model was supremely admired, especially by male artists.” She points to the mythical neo-classical work “The Sleep of Endymion” by Anne-Louis Girodet-Trioson as the quintessential use of the male body in painting. In the piece, Endymion lounges wistfully across the canvas, displaying his idealized body for the viewer.
While men are still used as models, more recently women have dominated the field. “By the middle of the 19th century the female model had taken the lead,” says Higonnet. This allowed women to find a niche within the patriarchal world of art, but also caused unease over the use of the female body as an object at the artist’s disposal. Victorine Meurent was a famous model for painters during this era and an artist herself. Her face is immortalized in several of Edouard Manet’s works, including the infamous “Olympia”, which turned the concept of the female nude on its head.
“Olympia” is studied in almost every art history class as the moment when the purity and mysticism of the female nude was transformed into a grotesque image, an exemplification of the type of male perversion and voyeurism prevalent in the modern city of Paris. In portraying a naked prostitute who looks out at the viewer as if he is a customer, Manet destroyed the romanticized notion of the feminine body and revealed the base sexuality that lies at the core of every man.
Today, the notion of nudity as inseparable from sex seems to have spilled over into the world of nude modeling. A Google search of the term “nude models” gives links that aren’t at all related to art—at least, not in the traditional sense of the word. Making the search more specific by adding in “art” yields the same results.
Craigslist, a popular vehicle for models to find jobs, also offers some sketchy prospects. While a few postings are simply looking for models to sit for a drawing class or a photo shoot, others seem to expect a bit more. One seemingly innocent post reads “Nude Male Models Needed,” but clicking reveals a photo of a nude couple getting a little too personal. Some models who also use Craigslist to promote themselves aren’t shy about explaining why they should be taking their clothes off for you. “Muscular Male Model Totally Open. For Real” ends his short resume by imploring readers to “Find out for yourself how fine I am,” along with a picture that shows just enough skin to back up his claim.
Our sex-obsessed culture threatens to cheapen the traditional use of the nude model. Now nudity is usually seen as pornographic rather than as a form for artistic inspiration. Additionally, as more contemporary artists move away from classical figuration and focus on abstract or mechanized art, the nude model as a muse no longer seems viable. While artists of the 19th and 20th centuries often developed intense relationships with their models and made them a part of the creative process, nude modeling today has become an impersonal profession used mostly in academic settings.
In the wake of the financial crisis many people have even turned to nude modeling to make a couple extra bucks. An article on how to make easy money in Time Out New York’s Student Guide issue, handed out to Columbia students on move-in day, lists nude modeling alongside other less provocative pursuits like dog walking or passing out flyers. Institutions like the School of Visual Arts and the National Academy hold auditions to pose for classes. Models can make anywhere from $18 an hour in a class to $100 an hour for professional work. Time Out states that the only prerequisites needed to land a gig are “stillness and boldness”—two skills anyone can acquire, especially when other jobs are hard to come by.
Even Columbia offers opportunities for students to do a little nude modeling on the side. The Artist Society, an on-campus visual arts group, holds Friday Night Sketches where anyone can set up an easel and practice their drawing skills. The group’s website prominently advertises for student models, stating, “If you hold a CUID and can maintain poses for 20 minutes ... consider modeling for us!”
Hiring students to display themselves in the buff on a college campus has certainly sparked some controversy. As Nora Rodriguez, a Columbia junior who is in charge of coordinating models for the sketch sessions, says, “When the Artist Society was asked to put on a drawing session for Days on Campus, we were not allowed to use nude models. It’s pretty ridiculous if you ask me. Anyone who has taken a figure drawing class knows what a benefit it is to see the body in its entirety. Besides, you can go to the Met and see all the nudity you want.”
Negative campus reactions to nude modeling have not deterred students from signing up to pose for the Society. “We are already mostly booked for the rest of the semester,” says Rodriguez,. When asked what draws in students, Rodriguez responds, “I think money is a large incentive, more so than a desire to further their art practice, anyway.” At $15 an hour, students are ready and willing to put aside their inhibition and shed their clothes—all in the name of art, of course.
Monetary enticement and the defiling of the nude may be eroding the purely artistic conventions of nude modeling. Even so, the practice has retained its credibility as a method for young art students to learn the fundamental basics of drawing and painting. Tara W. Geer, who teaches Basic Drawing at Columbia’s School of the Arts, explains that artists still use nude models today simply because “we still draw and paint people.”
As long as students are interested in becoming artists, sketching a nude model will continue to be the most useful way for beginners to refine their skills and understand how art captures what we see in the real world. Even though many students later stray from academic figurative representation in order to cultivate their own individual style, drawing from a nude provides them with the necessary foundation to explore more obscure approaches.
In Nick Guagnini’s Introduction to Drawing class at Barnard, students draw from a nude model for six to nine sessions before moving into abstraction and fragmentation. As Guagnini explains, several famous artists have worked with these modern conceits, especially when depicting the nude. Willem De Kooning’s series of paintings titled “Woman” portrays the female body with erratic brushstrokes and harsh colors. De Kooning consciously subverts the nude, demonstrating that he is aware of how the nude was traditionally represented in the past with an emphasis on mimesis and naturalism. Rendering the complex contours, shadows and details of the human body is a way of learning this “dominant code of representation, which needs to be understood,” argues Guagnini.
Professor Geer also emphasizes the importance of art students confronting the difficult and sensitive subject of nudity. “Nudity is particularly fraught—and you can feel an extra nervousness in the room” when students are presented with nudes, she says. “Part of the experience is learning to get over that, to be able to do your job of translating visual information into two dimensions though there is a naked woman or man right there in front of you. This can be a useful skill later on in drawing portraits, or even drawing through your own crowding emotions.” Drawing the nude not only teaches students invaluable technical skills but also gives them the emotional strength to question and stretch the limitations of art and use it as a vehicle for personal expression and social commentary.
The relationship between student and model is not one-sided—modeling can be an extraordinary learning experience for the naked party as well. Mariana Newhard, a model for Professor Guagnini’s class, says she enjoys listening to Guagnini’s lectures and feels like she is contributing to the class. Newhard, an actress originally from the Philippines, got her start as a nude model at School of Visual Arts when she heard about the job through a friend. She has done a range of work from animation classes to group poses that mimic biblical scenes. “If you have a good teacher running the class it makes a difference,” she says. “I feel like I am also learning and absorbing the information. The experience can be very comfortable when you feel like true art is being done.”
When watching Professor Guagnini’s students diligently sketch Mariana, it’s clear that “true art” is in fact being produced. In the softly lit studio, Mariana sits poised like a Greek statue. The silence is overwhelming. It seems as though this is a sacred space, one where the artist and model have come together to share a fleeting moment of creation. Here, the nude model seems untouched by the distortion of the outside world. She remains the holy muse she was always meant to be.
23 October 2009
vol. 7, issue 6
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