Nudes

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Lillian Schacherl

Edgar Degas was one of the most obsessive painters of the female body in the entire history of art. He produced some six hundred images of ballet dancers alone, and the nudes that dominate his late work are scarcely less numerous. The wealth of carefully chosen illustrations in this volume provides a multi-faceted survey of these two aspects of Degas' oeuvre. The iconographical variety of the imagery is complemented by the wide range of media employed by the artist. Oils and pastels, prints and drawings, sculptures - all are included here. Lillian Schacherl brings to life the world inhabited by these women. She rejects the interpretation of the images as voyeuristic by the moralists among Degas' contemporaries and by some present-day writers. The artist's intention, she argues, was neither to glorify the glamorous world of the ballet nor to revel in the beauty of the female form. Rather, he sought to capture fleeting moments of classically perfect movement and spontaneous, unselfconscious gesture. The author shows that, in their synthesis of classical values and more modern artistic concerns, Degas' ballet dancers and late nudes constitute one of the peaks of nineteenth-century art.

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Judith Noorman, David de Witt

Rembrandt and his pupils drew from the nude model in the 17th century. They took part in a new trend of drawing from models, but with different approach from their contemporaries. Rembrandt's drawings were especially realistic and he was criticized for presenting reality instead of pursuing the ideals of beauty then current.

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Rudolf Koella

Mit dem Bild 'Le bain au soir d?été' überwindet Félix Vallotton (1865-1925) den tonigen Realismus seines Frühwerks und bekennt sich zum farbigen Synthetismus der Nabis-Phase. Thematisch schliesst er sich mit der Szene der Badenden an die Tradition an und lässt eine Nähe zu Puvis de Chavannes oder gar zu Lucas Cranach erkennen. Gleichzeitig findet er mit diesem Werk auch die Zugehörigkeit zur eigenen Zeit und darüber hinaus zum unverkennbar eigenen Ausdruck. Das grossformatige Werk, das am Pariser Salon des Indépendants zu sehen war, löste einen Skandal aus. Nicht das Thema selbst erregte Anstoss, sondern die stilistische Formulierung und Zuspitzung der Motive: die karikierenden Frisuren und Gesichtszüge der einzelnen Frauen und ihre ausladenden Körperformen, die aller ästhetischen Ideale entbehrten. In diesen Bildsetzungen glaubte man bewusste Attacken des Künstlers auf die damalige Gesellschaft zu erkennen. Verunsichernd wirkte auch die thematische Rätselhaftigkeit des Werks. Eben diese ikonographische Offenheit, die Vallottons Bildwelt auszeichnet, hält sein Werk bis heute spannend. 0'Le bain au soir d?été' befindet sich heute in der Dauerausstellung des Kunsthaus Zürich.

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Tom Bianchi

In such photoessays as Out of the Studio and Extraordinary Friends, Bianchi helped to establish new levels of success and acceptability for collections of photographic male nudes. This new collection is an unabashed celebration of male beauty that proves there is no shame in allowing the body to stand for beauty itself. Photos.