The face of the nude belies either shame or pride. There is always a wrinkle in the lip or a searching angle in the gaze that speaks to something internal, the model's honest self-assessment. This image of the image itself, this subjective critique that crystallizes in the process of capturing the image, is an essential element of the nude that takes the self consciousness (and narcissism) of portraiture to a deeper level. Societal ideals of beauty along with the fervent cultural currents of repression and anti-sexuality converge on the model's face. And, even though their participation already indicates a liberal selectivity in their own attitudes, the moment that is frozen by the camera will still find the human ambivalence--the liberation and the embarrassment--toward his or her own form. It is a curious legacy, this hangover of modesty and titillation, the banishment of Eden with its weird logic lives on. In the uncertain glint in this naked man's eye, in the turn of this naked woman's head, there is a whole history of both this body and a whole history of the world.
"This journal is not a mere literary diversion. The further I progress, reducing to order what my past life suggests, and the more I persist in the rigor of composition--of the chapters, of the sentences, of the book itself--the more do I feel myself hardening in my will to utilize, for virtuous ends, my former hardships. I feel their power." --Jean Genet
Showing posts with label nude. Show all posts
Showing posts with label nude. Show all posts
09 April 2011
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