red shoes, and nudity

Here's a bit more life drawing. Our model very kindly agreed to sit still for a lengthy pose. This picture took about 30 or 40 minutes, and was done with several different kinds of marker.

Convention calls for artist's models to be naked, but I'm always happier to see some brightly coloured clothing. Nonetheless, I'm ambivalent about the merits of lingerie in drawings. It compartmentalizes the figure in a way that makes drawing easier, and more visually complex, but on the other hand, because it's so close fitting, there's no disruption of the natural lines of the body, and the process of drawing remains very predictable. Clothing that has lines of its own is often more interesting.

Of course, clothing is interesting for another reason. As Kenneth Clark long ago observed, the state of nudity in art "takes the most sensual and immediately interesting object, the human body, and puts it out of reach of time and desire." A clothed body implies that a decision has been made about what to wear, and that in turn implies a personality.

Our model chose to keep on her shoes and stockings and panties and glasses; had she decided to be naked, she would have presented a very different aspect. Ironically, it would have been far less sexual. One of the  reasons the convention of nudity still exists is because it allows us to use models as mere objects of art, or at least of art instruction, without the distraction of remembering that they are real people.




*He said it in The Nude: A Study in Ideal Form, Princeton: Princeton University Press, p.25. It's all very old news, but worth reiterating.