Transcript The Naked and the Nude

The Naked and the Nude
PowerPoint presentation
By Elizabeth Colvin
Adapted 7/27/01
By Elizabeth Drake-Boyt
SE version
In his essay, “The Naked and the Nude”
Kenneth Clark distinguishes between these
terms:
What is the difference
between Naked and Nude?
How are these differences
negotiated in works of art?
Is pornography a type of
photographic art?
Why or why not?
Why does Clark believe an
understanding of art includes
the nude?
Do you agree that the way
In which nudes are part of
Our art traditions defines our
Culture?
Why or why not?
If art is a matter of
rendering more perfect
the real, then what
does Clark believe to
be the role of the
photographer?
Often in looking at the natural and animal world we joyfully
identify ourselves with what we see and from this happy union
create a work of art (Clark: 236)
What does this statement mean to you?
What are the two critical
interpretations of the ideal?
Why was it so important to
the Greeks and those who
followed to render the
human form in geometric
proportions?
Clark cites various ways of
looking at the human body
represented in the arts of
different cultures.
Are they they same or
different?
There are other branches of human experience of
which the naked body provides a reminder—
harmony, energy, ecstasy, humility, pathos. . .as
if the nude as a means of expression is of
universal and eternal value. . . (Clark: 238)
Why does Clark say this is not true?
DISCUSSION QUESTION:
How do our aesthetics of beauty affect the way we see the
nude in art?
“There is no excellent beauty that hath not
some strangeness in the proportion. . .”
Francis Bacon
Bibliography
• Kenneth Clark, “The Naked and the
Nude”from The Philosophy of the Visual
Arts, Edited by Philip Alperson. Oxford
University Press, Oxford: 1992
List of Illustrations
• Slide #2: Art Nouveau frieze design, from The Woman in Art Nouveau
• Slide #3: Roman marble: “Discus Thrower”, copy of a bronze by the Greek
Myron (approx 450BC) from The Story of Art, plate 53, page 58.
• Slide #4: Henry Moore: “Recumbent Figure”, 1938. From The Story of Art, plate
384, page 467.
• Slide #5: Blake: “The Ancient of Days”, 1794. From The Story of Art, plate 322,
page 387.
• Slide #6: Goya: “The Giant”, 1820. From The Story of Art, plate 321, page 386.
• Slide #7: Gregory Gillespie: “Self-portrait (Torso)”, 1975. From Arts and Ideas,
plate 442, page 476.