Friday, May 20, 2016

More naked (caution--drawings of naked women by REAL artists)


I cut a third block and printed a few copies for a color version of my nude woodblock print.
This is on a thin, home-sized kozo washi 40g/m2 and now mounted onto thicker paper so it lies flat.
I'll probably print a few more to have a small edition (e.v.) on good washi in this color version.

It's no longer abstract so harder to read as or mistake for a flower or tree.
I like to think I'm channeling Schiele more than Courbet but either way I'm 100-150 years too late and both did a better job with the subject.
Schiele's female nude with red stockings (1914)

Courbet's "origin of the universe" 1866








4 comments:

  1. Funny, I just saw the original Courbet last week at the Musée d'Orsay ... it has just as much impact as it ever did ... please keep going with this.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. :) yes so many wonderful works of Art at The Musée d'Orsay... Unforgettable visit... My favourite was Le Désespoir, male nude sculpture 1861 de Jean-Joseph Perraud - Annemarie Borg

      Delete
  2. Oh-- I "get" it now. I was "reading" it as a tiny pair of pink buttocks underneath the scribbles, which was seeming to me like the scrambled mess of how far too many people think of their bodies--so much so that it doesn't really even register as a body. And then the very thin line going down as the most tenuous connection with the earth, not the sturdy legs that one should have. It's a little more disturbing thinking of it as total focus on THAT part of someone's body. But interesting in either case....

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Hmm. I like the idea of tiny buttocks under a huge body. And my work is often closer to that description. This was deliberately something else. I wanted to make a very "pretty" print with the attention I might have given to a still life of flowers....the only thing that makes it awkward is the subject and that's what I was getting at. I find the human body, male and female, to be beautiful. Unlike Courbet's work, I wasn't trying to titillate or shock but really just to point out how lovely this is....and how the tension comes from the other stuff we carry around with us. Others have done similar things. Objectifying the body sexually (Wessel) or dehumanizing the nude completely so it becomes part of the furniture (Pearlman). It's still a subject that interests me and I'll return to it again.

      Delete