A critique of the function of the female nude in art

'The female nude holds a duality of formal integrity and sexual desire' (Nead 1992: 49) and it is
because of this that it has often been a contentious issue within art. The nude has on one hand been
symbolic of Western culture and art, as Nead (1992: 2) notes when writing that 'the female nude
signifies the transformation of the base matter of nature into the elevated forms of culture and spirit...',
and on the other, the shameful incarnation of the male artists' lust and desire for the female form.
Nakedness is the most potent visual sign that a body is available for sexual encounter with another
body. Since art stands between the artist and the spectator, it might be argued that art that represents the
naked body serves the artist both as a sexual lure and as a shield against intimacy. (McDonald 2000: 7)
This was part of what led society to question whether it was appropriate to be in the presence of a
naked women in order to paint her, leading to the masculine forms of Michelangelo. The social purity
movement of the 1880s had a massive effect on the social reception of the female nude, and '...the
artistic nude, alongside
tableux vivants
and billboards advertising dancers, actresses and acrobats...' (Smith 1997: 220) were denounced as a
demoralising influence on society, though this feeds into the shaming of female sexual self-expression
which will be discussed later in this essay. This idea of sexual ambition and imagery courted
controversy with regards to Gaugins'
exotic Tahitian girls and Picasso's brothel
-bound, african tribal maskfaced l
es demoiselles d'avignon
.
This essay will firstly examine the historical context of the regulation of female form within the nude
and will go on to discuss the backlash against this within feminist art and the opening up of the female
form, both literally and metaphorically, and female sexual self-expression. In the average European oil
painting of the nude the principal protagonist is never painted. He is the spectator in front of the picture
and he is presumed to be a man. Everything is addressed to him. Everything must appear to be the
result of him being there. It is for him that the figures have assumed their nudity. But he, by definition,
is a stranger

with his clothes still on. (Berger J, 2002 in Jones, A (ed) ).

The great symbol of Western high art has always been the
female nude, its soft lines and qualities of flesh demonstrating the exquisite skill of the painter. The
framed female body, adorning the walls of the art institution is a shorthand for Western culture, of
civilisation and accomplishment (Nead, 1992). It is the containment of the nude through framing in art
that is inherent in the aesthetic of the female body in Western art. Nead (1992: 6) notes that: The forms,
conventions and poses of art have worked metaphorically to shore up the female body

to seal orifices and to prevent marginal matter from transgressing the boundary dividing the inside of
the body and the outside. There is a fear present in the sealing of the female nude, a fear of the impure,
the bodily, the carnal. There is a fear of oozing orifices and porous skin (Nead 1992: 8). There is an
attempt at sealing in chastity and purity, but at the same time also stopping the expulsion of the impure,
as noted by Nead (1992: 8) when she states that 'if nothing is allowed in or out, then the female body
remains a disturbing container for both the ideal and the polluted'. It is this regulation of women that is
indicative in both art and society of the idea that women need the manipulating hand of man to attain
some state of grace and it is this historical regulation that so many female artists subvert and critique in

their work. In her untitled 2003 work, Andrea Fraser records a sexual encounter with a private collector
who paid $20,000 for the experience, not to have sex, but to make art (Saltz, 2007). This artwork
suggests an attempt to shift the attitude toward the female nude in art, but also a critique of its context
within the art world. In this work Fraser takes control of the destiny of her female body within an
artistic setting: she removes the power of the male hand to contextualise her body as an artwork by
doing so herself. Fraser empowers her body through self control while at the same time criticising those
who have controlled the female body in the past. Through her action Fraser highlights the historical
role of the female nude in art as a commodity of patriarchal culture, something to be studied, observed
and represented, but to be spoken about with a male voice, as Berger (2002 in Jones, A (ed) ) states:
...Men act
and
women appear.
Men look at women. Women watch themselves
being looked at. This determines not only most relations between men and
women but also the relation of women to themselves. The surveyor of woman in herself is male: the
surveyed female. Thus she turns herself into an object

and most particularly an object of vision: a sight. While some may view this piece of Fraser's as
obscene, Nead (1992: 66) argues that some of the greatest masterpieces are seen as a bringing together
of artistic genius and sexual self-expression. This sexual self-expression only becomes considered
obscene when it is female sexual selfexpression. Through her work and the work of others such as Annie Sprinkles' public Cervix
announcement and Carolee Schneemanns' Interior Scroll
the female form is opened up and put on display on the artists' own terms. This is in stark contrast to
the hermetically-sealed nudes of the past, the innocent and unblemished, the bare and pale are all cast
aside to reveal the truth of the female form. This unveiling of the female form could only ever be
achieved by those who possess it, by those who experience its truth every day, not by the gaze of a man
who only observes it at arms' length. When women make art about the female body it is the revealing
of a truth; when men do, it is the revealing of an ideal, a process where through the procedures of art,
women can become culture: she is framed, she becomes image and the wanton matter of the female
body and female sexuality may be regulated and controlled (Nead, 1992) as Parker and Pollock (in
McDonald 2000: 8) state that: As female nude, woman is body, is nature opposed to male culture,
which, in turn, is represented by the very act of transforming nature, that is, the female model or motif,
into the ordered forms and colour of a cultural artefact, a
work
of art. It is also a defence mechanism against the primal urges of men; the transformation of the female
body into the female nude is an act of regulation, both of the female body and of the viewer. This
regulation aims to discipline the potentially wayward eye through the protocols of art (Nead, 1992). For
the role of the female nude in art to be fully evaluated and modified to something sitting more in line
with a contemporary viewpoint, the role of women in society needs to be treated accordingly. While the
progress of feminism has brought great advances in women's rights, society's attitude to women's
equality is still needing improvement. Society needs to change for art to change and there is a role for
art to play in the transformation of the social awareness of the issues. It is the duty of the male artist to
acknowledge his privilege but not accept it, and where appropriate critique it within his work. To reach
a true state of equality within art there needs to be a dialogue of change between art and society as
both are reliant on each other as evidenced in the trial of
Lady Chatterley's lover
as Robertson (2010) writes that: No other jury verdict in British history has had such a deep social

impact... The jury

that iconic representative of democratic society

had given its imprimatur to ending the taboo on sexual discussion in art and entertainment. Within a
few years the stifling censorship of the theatre by the lord chamberlain had been abolished, and a gritty
realism emerged in British cinema and drama. (
Saturday Night and Sunday Morning
came out at the same time as the unexpurgated
Lady Chatterley
, and very soon Peter Finch was commenting on
Glenda Jacksons tired old tits in
Sunday Bloody Sunday
and Ken Tynan said
the first fuck on the BBC.) Homosexuality was decriminalised, abortions
were available on reasonable demand, and in order to obtain a divorce it was
unnecessary to prove that a spouse had committed the matrimonial crime of
adultery... We live in a society where feminine traits in men are looked upon as being weak and inferior
and this has a direct effect on men's attitudes towards women and therefore on attitudes to women in
art. It is with this knowledge that we must go forward and effect change, to stop telling women how to
view themselves, to stop dictating their representation within art and the media. To stop using the
terms let them or allow them to speak for themselves as this indicates an acceptance of power
held
over them. It is not about what we do to them as men I let her stand up for herself or I allowed her
to say what she needed, but about what men must stop themselves doing.
In conclusion, while female representation in art has vastly improved in recent times there is still a way
to go and it is always important to understand the context within which one is operating. It is important
to note the distinction between the naked and the nude, as Clark (1956) writes:
To be naked is to be deprived of our clothes, and the word implies some of the embarrassment most of
us feel in that condition. The word "nude," on the other hand, carries, in educated usage, no
uncomfortable overtone. The vague image it projects into the mind is not of a huddled and defenseless
body, but of a balanced, prosperous, and confident body: the body re-formed. This allows the
representation of 'naked' female bodies within art to fall outside the convention of the female 'nude' and
it this distinction between the naked and the nude that sets the study of the life model apart from the
historical context of the female nude. The life drawing class is a very powerful tool to the artist to be
able to understand the core concepts of drawing, compositional thinking and the development of the
artistic eye. In her study of the female nude in art Nead (1992: 104) argues the case also for erotic art
by noting that 'obscenity invited a depersonalised view, whereas eroticism involves a process of
identification with the human relations depicted', it is this acknowledgement of the female form as an
equal participant of the erotic encounter which could be said to set it apart from the viewed female
form.It is with this in mind that one must go forward and be mindful of the history of the female nude
in art and to understand why it needs to change. The accessibility of art and its creation should be open
to all and the participation of women should extend beyond the source of nudes to be studied and
represented, and it is because of this that it is vital that the convention of the nude described in this
essay is talked about, critiqued and broken down, for it is only through raising awareness of issues that
they are resolved.