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Monday, July 9, 2012

Il nudo maschile

Speranza

When academic training for artists was codified under the Carracci, drawing and painting FROM THE MALE MODEL because even more central and inescapable in every painter's education.

Indeed, the traidition of the 'academy study', usually though not invariably made FROM THE MALE, remained an important part of every young artist's experience until the early years of the twentieth century.

In compositions made for sale, however, the FEMALE by contrast increasingly tended to displace the male -- as a symbol of liberation which was alos a symbol of pleasure.

The tendency reached a climax in the art of Boucher, the leading painter of the French rococo.

Boucher's libertine subject-matter, combined with his connection with the court, made him a favourite target of the reforming _philosophes_, and especially of Denis Diderot, who has the best claim to be considered the first modern art-critic.

Diderot introduced into art-criticism one element it has never since succeeded in getting rid of, however much art itself has changed.

Diderot turned the creation of an artwork into a deliberate MORAL act, and David, who has already been mentioned, was one of the first painters to put this doctirne into practical effect.

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