The imagination of the body in art

The intimate character of body and skin have an appealing symbolism. As a result, skin and body are often central to fashion phenomena such as make-up and piercing, in painting, visual arts, film, drama, dance and, last but not least, literature, reading and poetry.

Bodies painted in decay

Lucian Freud was 17 years old when he viewed the body of his grandfather Sigmund, who had just died of cancer. He remembers 'a sort of hole in his cheek like a brown apple. That was why there was no death mask made, I imagine'. In retrospect, any interpretation is as simple as it is misleading, but in this confrontation lies the seeds of Lucian Freud's later artistry. All that is real is rotting away. In fact, the decline is proof that we are alive.

Freud is the chronicler of that decline. This can be seen in the death masks that he continued to make and his paintings that gave him world fame. His work is full of carnal lust, but without exception they are afflicted bodies:quivering flesh, full of grooves, wrinkles, spots and scars. Skin that is aging, skin in the preliminary stage of the putrefaction process. It is sometimes difficult to find his work beautiful, but it is impossible not to admire this work.

The body described

In the novella The model ., author J. Bernlef, who died in 2012, from the collection Cello Years inspired by Lucian Freud, He gives the floor to an unnamed woman who posed all her life for a painter, of whom we only hear the first name:Lucian. She looks back on the thirty years that she modeled for him. She posed for the first time when she was 25, hesitant at first, a little girlish. Ten years later, he portrays her with red spots on her face and on her kneecaps. Like she has eczema. The body is affected. Slightly but unmistakably.

Eight years later – the woman is now married and a mother – Lucian looks approvingly at the stretch marks on her hips:'A body without scars has no beauty for me'. In the most recent session, he even made three canvases of her, painted quickly, within ten days. Her skin now consists of coarse brushstrokes, and she thinks:'my flesh has become paint'. There is satisfaction in her voice and that is not surprising. Her skin is perpetuated in a kind of biography of skin images, with the artist as the author. 'After all, there is no man who knows the history of my body better than he does.' Her life history now hangs in museums.

Afterplay with snake in the picture

In the Musée d'Orsay in Paris there is - or is, if you will - a statue of a white marble woman on a rococo bed of carved flowers, Femme piquée par un serpent, by the French sculptor Auguste Clésinger (1814-1883). The writhing woman in an ecstatic compulsion was a beautiful courtesan who was warm. She was officially bitten by a snake, but everyone who saw the sculpture felt her reminiscent of sexual excitement.

Théophile Gautier wrote in La Presse of April 10, 1847:"This woman is not of marble, she is of flesh, she is not hewn, she lives, she turns. Is that illusion? Anyone who manages to lay their hands on this veined, twisting body will not feel the coldness of stone, but the lukewarm warmth of flesh. She lies on roses and flowers that are barely perceptibly colored red and blue, in all her impetuosity and unforcedness of a fiercely voluptuous pose, a hollow back, head turned back, torso turned upward, her proud breasts tossing the sky The sculptor shows the body here proudly, with a paradoxical message:at the mercy of lust or convulsed by the venom of a snake? Or do those two things coincide in that white, undescribed skin…?

Body as mnemonic device in the movie

A skin is never blank. The skin is in itself a kind of diary, on which history leaves its traces. Although that happens every day, these notes of the aging process are almost exclusively read at longer intervals, in the handwriting of spots, wrinkles, folds or shriveling. Scars are also a constant reminder of very concrete life events. Christopher Nolan presents in the movie Memento a fascinating example.

The young insurance agent Leonard was severely traumatized by the murder of his wife. His short-term memory is damaged, but he is determined to find the culprit. However, all he remembers is that his wife was murdered plus who he is. The rest keeps eluding him. For example, he no longer recognizes the people he meets the next day.

As a reminder, Leonard always has a Polaroid camera handy, with which he takes pictures of everyone he speaks. But photos and captions are not enough. Leonard uses his body for the most important communications. He has all the important facts and opinions tattooed on his skin. Thus, on his arms and legs are 'the facts', such as gender (man), occupation (drug dealer) and the name of the murderer of his wife. Broad reads - in mirror image - on his chest "John G raped and killed my wife", with below it "Find him and kill him". The photos and the tattoos form the "system" with which Leonard documents his life. He seeks the ultimate support through his body.

The body as a work of art

The human body can be a work of art in itself. This is possible by presenting one's own body as a work of art, like the living statues in all major world cities, with Las Ramblas in Barcelona in the lead. It can also be done within the framework of a work of art such as ballet and modern dance. The artist Orlan opts for displaying the body, while photographer Carla van de Puttelaar opts for capturing someone else's or 'other woman's' body.

Inspired dance

Like no other dancers are able to use their own body as a work of art, within the framework of a choreography. This involves the coordination of musicality, motor skills and artistic expression. These elements must be perfectly matched to each other. Dancers depend on the choreography, but the choreographer also depends on his dancers. Rudi van Dantzig has always been shoving and pushing the dancers of the Dutch National Ballet, as can be seen in documentaries. He chased them through the studio like a madman, not because he was striving for absolute perfection – he was never really attached to that – but because the quality and durability of his work depend on an inspired performance. Personality, intention, conviction, that's what Van Dantzig wanted to see.

Salomé's biblical dance was probably little more than the glimpse of a bulging belly button. It was probably no different then than it is now:a girl whose body is budding can, if she twists her belly, buttocks and breasts lasciviously, completely upset a man. That happened when Salome danced at a banquet for her stepfather Herod and his distinguished guests. Herod was blown away by her swinging hips and made her a promise he almost immediately regretted. She could ask him what she wanted. He would grant her every wish. Salome consulted her mother Herodias – and she knew what she wanted:the head of John the Baptist, the stern prophet who had proclaimed everywhere that her (second) marriage to her brother-in-law Herod was illegal.

Skinny image

An extreme case of body presentation represents the twins Liesbeth and Angelique Raeven (1971). In 2000 an advertisement appeared on the vacancy page of Het Parool. In that advertisement, the L.A. Raeven Analyze &Research Service company was looking for someone with a very specific profile:

Length> 170 cm; chest circumference <82 cm; no full breast development; back length =40 cm; waist =43 cm; hips <82 cm; long and thin arms> 60 cm; long thin legs of> 100 cm, and long thin fingers/toes. In addition, the following is recommended:age <28 years; underdeveloped secondary sex characteristics; absence armpit hair; loss of scalp hair; muscles visible under the skin, and childlike appearance.

Recommended Character Traits:Unusual eating and drinking habits; a controlled daily schedule; at least one practical handicap; unable to deal with stressful situations, and difficulty making decisions.

The ad accurately describes the profile of an anorexic patient. Het Parool thus fell for a so-called advertisement from a non-existent company. It was a concoction of artist collective 'L.A. Raven'. They mainly present video installations with themselves in the lead role. For example, the sisters in Wild Zone I sit on the floor, share a cracker now and then, or drink a sip of water or wine at the same time. Every now and then a word is spoken, most of the time they are silent. The gallery where the video is shown must also provide a pungent body odor at their request. Their work is penetrating and confrontational. They show the life of an anorexic patient in all basic nakedness, convinced of the meaning of such a life. In their early works there is hardly any distance from the subject of their artworks; they are the works of art. Irony, which so often provides breathing space, is completely absent. It is only in later utterances that irony seems to seep in, because the titles of their manifestation cannot be read without a grin, such as Thinspiration and The less calories, the longer you live .

Operative art

The French artist Orlan (1947) goes far, very far with her body. She had her body transformed through plastic surgery operations. The operations were performed as public events and were accompanied by a philosophical, psychoanalytic or literary text, which Orlan read from the operating table. Famous fashion designers provided the clothes for her employees and the surgeons, the decor was imaginative. Everything was filmed and exhibited as a work of art in museums.

The plastic surgeons were initially quite skeptical about the whole. The call for such an intervention usually stems from deformity – for example after an accident – ​​or a feeling of imperfection about certain parts of the body. The wishes of each patient are primarily aesthetically oriented:making the original more beautiful, more beautiful. Orlan's motivation is quite different. She does not strive for embellishment, she deliberately makes her body available for her own experiments. A person can largely decide what happens to his body, but there are limits to which the surgeon must respect the professional standard. For example, he will not readily cooperate with willful mutilation. Behold the dilemma of the e(s)th(et)ist:is this mutilation or a work of art?

Photographed

The Amsterdam-based photographer Carla van de Puttelaar is very close to her models. Literal. The skin, the naked body, is her field of research. She has been called 'the undisputed grand master of white skin'. It is not the perfect body or a pretty face that interests her, but someone's attitude or body language, that one mother face, the freckled skin, blood vessels that shine through the skin, the specific character of the model or the inimitable way in which the interior flows through the body. shines away.

‘I like to show birthmarks and also temporary features such as scratches in the skin. They give the image tension, beauty and vulnerability. It is an open, experimental process. Sometimes you become fascinated by veins that shine through the skin or you have been touched by a print of clothes or a bruise. I really see things like that as gifts', says Van de Puttelaar.

Anyone who sees one of her most beautiful photos cannot help but agree with that statement. Bruises float just below the skin's surface, and the print of a lace slip still graces the hip. The latter in particular shows the passing of time. Because how long will the imprint of lace on the skin be visible? Not long.

Creator

The question arises:Is bodies in art and art on a body ultimately all about flat biology – showing off – or is there more to it? Whoever sees biology and evolution in themselves as a work of art, quickly arrives at God as an artist. A God who in all that he creates creates a being that tries to fathom his infinite creation; which he imparts with an ingenuity that gradually unfolds with the intention of finding out why the creator created all this. That is the art with a capital K:the creation of a creature that rivals its creator. The human being who derives his 'being' from his having (and keeping).

In addition, a more concrete answer is conceivable:in art the body is a grateful subject and object. The body is then both a means – for experimenting, for example – and an end:the body as a 'cloth' for the imagination. For artists, the body is so fascinating partly because it is a living thing. An organism that struggles, breathes, sighs, moans and whatnot. The body is thus a symbol for life itself. Ultimately, in life, in stories, in art it is all about 'meaning'. This makes the study of the body in art as fascinating as it is complex. Because creating and recreating go hand in hand with giving meaning, commenting on it and getting it, and then commenting on comment…

Van de Puttelaar shows the viewer the ordinary skin of the ordinary body of the ordinary person, never flawless. Then the normal body, in all its irregularities, precisely thanks to its irregularities, turns out to be a natural work of art. Although it is a work of art that is always 'in development'. Like fashion and taste, the human body is at the mercy of seasonality. Beauty comes, beauty disappears, in a continuous interaction.

'I think everything that is beautiful is so beautiful' 'Everything that is beautiful can also be very ugly' 'And all that has been, that came?' 'That came' 'But it won't come anymore' 'No, it won't come again'

Men's suffering