Gesture

Gestural is a term used to describe the application of paint in free sweeping gestures. Gesture drawing and painting might appear to be a new practice but it was frequently used by Michelangelo – However it is only relatively recently that gestural works have been accepted in their own right and not relegated to the status of a preparatory sketch. There is still a lot to be learned from quick sketchbook drawings, as they reveal traces of the process and adjustments made.

Gestural work requires a confidence and full absorption in the process. It is drawing with your whole body – movements stemming not just from the wrist but from the shoulder,  linking the natural gestures of your body with the dynamic shapes of the figure. It helps to hold the brush or pencil loosely and close to the end for freer movement, starting with light marks which allow for adjustments at a later stage.

Michelangelo made quick gestural drawings from life, designed only for himself in order to be worked up into a more laboured and ‘finished’ piece. They capture the essence of his subject in minimal strokes. One of these is ‘Risen Christ’. This study belongs to a set of compositions of the Resurrection of Christ. There are visible traces of repeated changes made to the posture of the legs, before a final composition is settled on. The drawing anticipates the posture of Christ in the Last Judgment in the Sistine Chapel.  Marks are made in strong gestural strokes with varying pressure to describe the contours of the muscular body. The preliminary gesture drawing enables Michelangelo to carry this dynamism across into the more finished piece.

Michelangelo, ‘Risen Christ’, 1532.

In 'Little Nude,’ Peploe uses curved lines to describe the figure, made with quick flicks of the brush. These are not restricted to an outline but go within and across the figure. In other places paint is applied in fluid motions with a broader brush. The gestural drawing captures the sense of the curve of the spine as the model reaches out. Once against gestural marks are continued into the background enforcing the impression of a figure occupying a space. Tonal contrast with the background helps to bring the figure out. Peploe’s gestural work associates him with the impressionists with a shared desire to depict the essence of what they are looking at rather than merely represent it.

Peploe, 'Little Nude’ 1930.

Frank Auerbach worked in an ‘active, extreme and strenuous way’, emphasising the importance of process. His ‘Study of a Nude’, 1954 is made using only two tones – black and brown. A variety of marks is introduced using a smudging or smearing technique as can be achieved with a putty rubber or the fingers. This has the effect of softening his energetic pencil marks in places. Gestural marks have a directionality to them which gives momentum and takes the eye on a journey around the drawing. In Auerbach’s drawing this directionality conveys the angle of the figure which is moving away from us. His gestural marks continue outside the borders of the figure, however this doesn’t matter as the figure can be carved out of them. It is a process of refining that begins with the biggest shapes. His aim is to create a set of relationships between the masses, the space, the sensations and the tense surface character of the picture. He says   ‘There is no one-to-one relation of mark to object’, the goal is ‘to put down the mind’s grasp of their relationship’, in an experience which is more haptic than retinal.

Auerbach uses gesture drawing to capture a moment from the past and reanimate it rather than simply recording it. He aims “to pin down an experience in its essential aspect before it disappears”. This suggests that his work is intuitive rather than pre-planned – he is always in search of the unpredictable.

Frank Auerbach, 'Study of a Nude’, 1954.

Naked/nude

The definitions of Naked/Nude have evolved gradually throughout the history of art. Diderot first declared partial nudity as indecent in 1767. In his opinion a partially clad women is dressing up deliberately to provoke men, whereas a fully ‘nude’ woman is innocent in her natural state. ‘Imagine the Medici Venus is standing in front of you, and tell me if her nudity offends you. But shoe this Venus’ feet with two little embroidered slippers. Dress her in tight white stockings secured at the knee with rose-colored garters. Place a chic little hat on her head, and you’ll feel the difference between decent and indecent quite vividly.’

Kenneth Clarke claimed in 1956 that the word ‘nude’ was invented to justify the naked human body as a worthy artistic subject. So the nude refers to an artistic genre – the balanced, prosperous, and confident body, but to be naked is to be deprived of clothes, implying embarrassment.

Sixteen years later John Berger gives nakedness a more positive slant – for him, to be naked is to be oneself – without the objectification that is applied to the ‘nude’. So for example an artist might paint his wife naked instead of nude, conveying intimacy. He says that whilst nakedness reveals itself, nudity is placed on display (usually for the male gaze).

Donatello’s David is one of the first artworks to feature the semi-nude figure, described by Kenneth Clark as ‘a work of incredible originality’. It shows David triumphant after killing Goliath, whose severed head lies beneath his feet. David is nude save for his sandals and a helmet – but does this make him naked? These items of protective clothing appear out of place, bookending his bare skin. David was traditionally depicted as a bearded king, far from the sensuous youth envisioned by Donatello. Many have speculated on Donatello’s sexuality, suggesting that this offers an explanation for the homoerotic overtones we see in the work today. To the Renaissance viewer the sculpture's lack of clothing may have called to mind the heroic nudity of antiquity, comparing David to the Gods and heroes of the classical world. Either way, it was a bold statement to make in the centre of the courtyard in the Palazzo Medici, home to the most prominent family in Florence.

Donatello, David, 1440s

Egon Schiele is known for his semi-nudes, exploited for their provocative potential. Their eroticism is emphasised by the suggestion that they are in the process of undressing, or revealing themselves for the voyeur. No doubt Diderot would have found them highly indecent! Stockings for example would have associated them with prostitutes - combined with ‘imperfections’ such as body hair, these items of clothing sever the naked body from its classical associations. In their place a humanity and expressiveness is allowed to come through. Schiele’s woman is intensely aware of the viewer just as we are intensely aware of her nakedness.

Egon Schiele, Seated Female Nude, 1914

Semi nudity or nakedness is also employed in feminist art by women using their own bodies. VALIE EXPORT’s ‘Action Pants’ is a set of photos in documentation of a piece of performance art in Munich in 1968. They show her sitting outside on a bench wearing crotchless trousers and a leather shirt, holding a machine-gun in front of her chest. Her feet and genitals are bare and vulnerable. Her level of attire is the inverse of Schiele’s women, and somewhat unconventional. These touches of feminine vulnerability are juxtaposed with the aggressive, phallic imagery of the gun with which she appears to threaten the viewer, as well as her confrontational stance. She is said to have carried out the performance during a pornographic showing in a cinema, walking through the audience, her exposed genitalia at face-level. This confrontation aimed to challenge the historical representation of women as passive objects without agency,  in cinema as well as art. The image also questions the sexualisation of the female body - when divorced from the rest of the body is it possible for an individual feature to be inherently erotic?

VALIE EXPORT, Action Pants: Genital Panic, 1969

Sun and rain

Romanticism in art was concerned with the power of nature – including the weather. This was encompassed in the concept of ‘the sublime’, literally meaning something that is ‘raised aloft’. It is so immense, whether physically or spiritually, that we can’t fully perceive or comprehend it. William Blake was a major figure of Romanticism in both poetry and art.

As well as British Romanticism, Japanese art and Haiku poetry commonly use the weather as a metaphor. Japanese artist Hiroshige has been referred to as “the poet of rain”. In Japanese culture the weather is considered it to be a clock that marks the milestones of life.

‘The Sun at his Eastern Gate’ is one of twelve watercolor designs by William Blake for John Milton’s poems L'Allegro and Il Penseroso, that contrast the cheerful man with the melancholic, thoughtful one. Blake was a poet himself as well as being an artist, and Milton was one of his inspirations. His work was probably inspired by the lines;

Right against the eastern gate,
Where the great Sun begins his state,
Rob’d in flames, and amber light,
The clouds in thousand liveries dight.

In Greek and Roman mythology, Apollo is considered to be the God of the sun, however Blake designed his own mythology in his artwork. His personification of the sun at his eastern gate may be read simply as sunrise, and the smaller figures behind him the clouds, carrying platters of food which celebrate the sun’s life-giving energy. However the outstretched arms of the sun and his sceptre suggest the more spiritual subject of the gates of heaven with throngs of angels rejoicing all around. The ‘flames and amber light’ of the poem give the painting its fiery colours - Blake’s interpretation of a heavenly light. Blake was interested in relationship between divinity and humanity. He claimed to have seen visions from a young age, usually of religious themes including God and angels. This visionary quality comes into his painting, and served as inspiration to British surrealist artist including Paul Nash and Graham Sutherland.

William Blake, The Sun at his Eastern Gate, 1820

Rain was a constant subject in Japanese Ukiyo-e (traditional woodblock prints and paintings). Whilst in British art the rain might be used as a metaphor for gloom and sadness, in Japanese art it is treated as a necessity and a blessing. Artworks depicting the rain served to represent gratitude. As seen in artistic renderings such as Harunobu Suzuki’s ‘Shrine Visit in Night Rain’, in Japan the sight of someone out in the rain without an umbrella is unusual. The rain itself is depicted with straight directional lines, in-keeping with the geometric simplicity of Ukiyo-e compositions. The direcitonality helps to suggest the wind along with the waving trees and ruffled skirt. The woman is struggling to hold onto her lantern at the same time as lifting her kimono to prevent it from getting wet.

Harunobu Suzuki, Shrine Visit in Night Rain, 1770

Narrative

Chagall’s ‘Le Paradis’ and Jacopo del Sellaio’s ‘Cupid and Psyche’ represent two different approaches to depicting well known narratives in a single work of art. Each tackles the issue of space differently, and uses a range of  pictorial devices to communicate a story in the absence of words.

Chagall’s ‘Le Paradis’ depicts Adam and Eve in Paradise – an indeterminate space made up of layers of colour. The figures are represented multiple times, beginning with the birth of Adam on the right and Eve on the left, followed by the two embracing as Eve offers Adam the fruit. The narrative features of the painting are not depicted literally but symbolically. Sea creatures, land mammals and birds occupy a unified picture plane, alluding to the story of creation, and the harmony of all God’s creatures. The symbols of serpent and fruit tell us that this is the moment before the fall. Despite these clues the narrative remains vague enough that it is left up to the viewer to decide whether this is a moment of sharing embrace, or rebellion against God. This element of mystery is created by Chagall’s dreamlike interpretation of biblical stories.

Marc Chagall, ‘Le Paradis’, 1961.

Jacopo del Sellaio depicts another well-known story – that of Cupid and Psche - all on a single panel painting. Unlike Chagall’s dreamlike space, it is clear how this painting is intended to be read. The narrative unfolds from left to right, a bit like a comic strip. The fall of light and the direction of the grass help to point the way for the viewer. Psyche features in the painting fifteen times. If it wasn’t for the identifying clothing which remains the same for each character throughout their many appearances, the complicated narrative would be impossible to follow.

Jacopo Del Sellaio, 'Cupid and Psyche’, 1473.

The painting begins on the far left with Psyche’s conception in the bedchamber of Endelechia, followed by her birth below. As she leaves the house, now a woman, she is met by a crowd of male suitors. Cupid is seen hovering above, following the orders of the jealous Venus to put a curse on Psyche, but falls in love with her himself. In the distance her parents take her to visit the Oracle of Apollo in order to find a husband. On hearing that she’s cursed to fall in love with a monster they send her to the top of the mountain, where she is pictured consequently being blown down by the wind. She is then welcomed into the palace of cupid, who makes her his wife but prohibits her from setting eyes on him. Outside the palace she chats with her sisters who persuade her to break the vow out of suspicion. Finally, inside the bedchamber she lights a lamp to gaze upon him whilst he sleeps, accidentally waking him, and he flies away from her out of the top right corner.

The story has a clear beginning and end, symbolically bookended by the two bed chamber scenes.  The painting covers a large span of psyche’s life in a single unified landscape, which calls for the extended length of the panel. Gestures and facial expressions are also used to convey the narrative in the place of words. It is likely that the contemporary audience would have found the act of deciphering such a narrative painting a form of social entertainment and an opportunity to show off their knowledge of literature and mythology. The painting would have originally decorated an Italian marriage chest, in which context the narrative would have served as a call for obedience in marriage directed at wives.

Daily domesticity in figurative art

Life drawing sessions usually result in a beautiful drawing of a nude in an indeterminate space, but the setting can feel contrived - almost removed from life itself. The opportunity to sketch a model in the context of their daily life is, therefore, a rare and valuable one. 

Under the old Academy system, this would have been out of the question. Depiction of the nude was only acceptable within the most prestigious of genres, History Painting, traditionally under the guise of a mythological of allegorical figure to be on the safe side. However if you dared to descend the hierarchy of genres you would find ‘genre painting’. Developed in 17th century Dutch art, these are paintings depicting ordinary people going about their everyday lives – but strictly with their clothes on! 

Vermeer is one such artist who painted many domestic interior scenes. Almost all his paintings are set in two small rooms in his house in Delft, featuring the same furniture in different arrangements. Vermeer lends equal importance to setting and figure, resulting in a sense of context and narrative. ‘The Milkmaid’ portrays a kitchen-maid going about her daily work preparing food (in this case bread pudding!). Representing her modesty and hard work elevates this from a simple painting of ordinary life to an image of domestic virtue, one of the highest values in 17th-century Netherlands.

Johannes Vermeer, The Milkmaid, 1657.

As we follow artistic developments into the 20th century and beyond, the nude is released from the confines of the mythological and enters into the modern and not so moralising equivalent of genre scenes…

The Bathroom

Bonnard, In the bath, 1925.

With historical precedent in Titian, Michelangelo and Rembrandt, the subject of the bather was a seamless way to integrate the nude figure into a painting of domestic life. Bonnard is the master of domestic bathroom scenes. Depicting the bather allowed him to express a new unromanticised view of the human body.

The paintings depict his wife, Marthe. She spent many hours in the bath, believed to be a form of therapy for suspected tuberculosis, or the result of an obsessive neurosis. But Bonnard made the most of a situation which provided him with a regular model!

Bonnard’s bathrooms date from the time of the exciting introduction of the fitted bath, adding a geometric structure to his later compositions. His nudes are often semi-obscured by a towel or the bath itself, denying the viewer complete intimacy, as the figure dissolves into the blue bathwater.

The Bedroom

Lucian Freud, Man with leg up, 1992.

It is likely that the opportunistic sketchers among us will have drawn a sleeping friend or a stranger nodding off on a train once or twice, only to have them inconsiderately change position or wake up before we are done. Domestic Life drawing will offer us the luxury of drawing a model half in, half out of bed, delicious crumpled sheets and all. 

Whilst the draped nude is a delight to draw in itself, it is the surrounding features of the bedroom that give mood and character to the work. We need only look to Tracy Emin’s infamous ‘My Bed’ to see how many intimate details a person’s bed can reveal about their lifestyle. Working with paint in a similar vein is Lucian Freud, favouring dishevelled nudes over sleeing beauties. ‘Man with leg up’ shows his friend the performance artist Bowery, one leg up on the bed, the other folded underneath him as if he has just slipped off, bringing the sheets with him. He rests on the mound of sumptuous off-white drapery. Freud uses setting and pose to indicate vulnerability, whilst his muted colours and subtle shading evoke the peacefulness of the bedroom.

The living room

Balthus, The Room, 1952.

As we move into the living room, a more public part of the home, the nude figure becomes less commonplace. However, this has failed to discourage artists from painting it.

Balthus is known for his dream-like paintings featuring female figures in domestic interiors. In ‘The Room’, a girl lies sprawled on a couch, wearing only her socks. The awkward pose and starkly furnished interior are both characteristic of his work. A heavy curtain is drawn back by a second figure, showering her in daylight. The chiaroscuro (contrasting light and shadow) pulls the focus back to the figure and creates a sense of mystery as to what may lie in the shadows. 

In opposition to Freud’s restful bedroom scenes, the absurd placement of this nude in a domestic setting suggests there is a story behind the work, at which the viewer can only speculate. We are made to feel the voyeur of a private moment. 

The kitchen

In the 1950s, a group of artists earned themselves the glamorous title ‘The kitchen sink painters’. In their interpretation of genre painting for a new era, otherwise called social realism, they painted the most everyday subjects including -  you guessed it, the kitchen sink. (You can find more info about them via TATE here.)

The kitchen and the nude are two subjects that we may not instinctively put together. Whilst the idea of the naked chef might be playful and humorous, in recent feminist art, the kitchen and the female body have been brought together with a social/political message. For the most well-known example of this see ‘Semiotics of the Kitchen’, a performance piece released in 1975 by Martha Rosler. She parodies television cooking demonstrations, fuelled by the frustration of oppressive women’s roles. 

In this performance Rosler takes on the role of an apron-clad housewife and parodies the television cooking demonstrations popularized by Julia Child in the 1960s. Standing in a kitchen, surrounded by refrigerator, table, and stove, she moves through the alphabet from A to Z, assigning a letter to the various tools found in this domestic space.

Linder is another feminist artist from the same period, who combined the female nude and the kitchen through collage. Untitled, 1976 shows the figure of a naked woman tied in string, emerging from a saucepan with a blender for a head, in an otherwise seemingly normal kitchen. The work touches upon associations between the female body and the traditionally female role of cook, a far cry from the celebration of domestic virtue in Vermeer’s ‘The Milkmaid’.

Linder, Untitled, 1976.

Whilst not all art requires an underlying message, such examples of the ways other artists have used the figure in a domestic setting can hopefully get us thinking about the myriad of opportunities we all have to sketch the figure - not only in the life drawing room, but as we go about our daily lives.