Nudity In Art

[T-Bone _]

[quote name='Terra Firma' post='1341731' date='Jul 26 2007, 05:01 PM']Here's an interesting question ... those of you who answered that you're not opposed to nude art, would anyone actually pose in the nude for an artist? Would you put up a nude portrait of someone you knew? Please explain your answer.[/quote]

I wouldn't pose nude. But I'm spotty and lumpy, and have weird hair patches in odd places. Not very purdy.

[Cow of Shame]

[quote name='T-Bone _' post='1342909' date='Jul 28 2007, 02:28 AM']I wouldn't pose nude. But I'm spotty and lumpy, and have weird hair patches in odd places. Not very purdy.[/quote]

Perhaps you'd be best suited for a medical journal illustration, eh?

[goldenchild17]

[quote name='aalpha1989' post='1342907' date='Jul 28 2007, 12:18 AM']but the whole point is that it isn't erotic, the art shouldn't display people having sex.[/quote]
I was using sex as a second example, not implying that all nude pictures/"art" is sexual. Sex is a good and holy thing, yet is not something to be publicly displayed. Thus I think just because it is good and even holy, doesn't mean it is okay to show it to the public. I personally believe the body falls into the category.

[quote name='aalpha1989' post='1342907' date='Jul 28 2007, 12:18 AM']and also if it's good enough for the vatican it's good enough for me.[/quote]
no comment

[quote]i can't really say anything i haven't said before because i'm not well versed in this subject. however american society and general american morals (not pop culture) are very puritan still.[/quote]
I've heard this said many many times, and no matter how many times I hear it, I will never be able to believe it. If american society is puritan then I am officially frightened of the world (though I was already, but this would doubly confirm it).

[quote]in europe they consider it more acceptable to have nudity in art.[/quote]

Super-crazy liberalism and lesser-super-crazy liberalism is still crazy liberalism. Being less immoral than somebody else is not sufficient. It's not good enough to point to your neighbor and say that you are okay because at least you are doing better than he.


[quote]And, again, adam and eve were quite naked until the fall...morals didn't change after that....[/quote]
The morality of people certainly did. This gets repaired to a good degree with baptism, and with staying in grace. But for most of the world, this grace is not been given to them. Adam and Eve both saw and realized "and were ashamed" that they were naked. Clearly their viewpoint on it changed. The body didn't become less beautiful or less holy. It was the people who were changed, and changed we still are, and changed we will be until the end. Because of the fall it is much harder to fight sin, though we have help in the sacraments. It became a matter of morality to keep the body covered. We are no more advanced morally then anybody before us. There is no more moral reason to accept nudity than there ever has been before. Again, just my opinion...

[cathoholic_anonymous]

This exact question has been addressed by Sister Wendy Beckett, a hermit nun who lives in the woodlands near a Carmelite monastery in south-eastern England. She is also an art critic and has written several books on art, in addition to featuring in television documentaries. In one of her books she points out that nudity in art is never used to divorce the body from the soul and mind, to turn it into an object for lust. When that happens it ceases to be art and becomes pornography. Instead, nudity is used as a vehicle of expression, to capture fully the subject's beauty - mind, soul, personality, not just flesh. Her commentary on the painting [i]The Rape of Lucretia[/i] is particularly thought-provoking, as she points out that in this painting the would-be rapist is avoiding eye contact with his victim. This, she says, is the hallmark of lust: bloodthirsty desire for power and unwillingness to look at the victim as a person. The same is true of pornography. Artwork will always be distinct from this attitude.

[cmotherofpirl]

I LOVE that show!

[IcePrincessKRS]

[quote name='Cathoholic Anonymous' post='1343044' date='Jul 28 2007, 11:38 AM']This exact question has been addressed by Sister Wendy Beckett, a hermit nun who lives in the woodlands near a Carmelite monastery in south-eastern England. She is also an art critic and has written several books on art, in addition to featuring in television documentaries. In one of her books she points out that nudity in art is never used to divorce the body from the soul and mind, to turn it into an object for lust. When that happens it ceases to be art and becomes pornography. Instead, nudity is used as a vehicle of expression, to capture fully the subject's beauty - mind, soul, personality, not just flesh. Her commentary on the painting [i]The Rape of Lucretia[/i] is particularly thought-provoking, as she points out that in this painting the would-be rapist is avoiding eye contact with his victim. This, she says, is the hallmark of lust: bloodthirsty desire for power and unwillingness to look at the victim as a person. The same is true of pornography. Artwork will always be distinct from this attitude.[/quote]

That was an awesome post.

[Lil Red]

[quote name='Cathoholic Anonymous' post='1343044' date='Jul 28 2007, 08:38 AM']This exact question has been addressed by Sister Wendy Beckett, a hermit nun who lives in the woodlands near a Carmelite monastery in south-eastern England. She is also an art critic and has written several books on art, in addition to featuring in television documentaries. In one of her books she points out that nudity in art is never used to divorce the body from the soul and mind, to turn it into an object for lust. When that happens it ceases to be art and becomes pornography. Instead, nudity is used as a vehicle of expression, to capture fully the subject's beauty - mind, soul, personality, not just flesh. Her commentary on the painting [i]The Rape of Lucretia[/i] is particularly thought-provoking, as she points out that in this painting the would-be rapist is avoiding eye contact with his victim. This, she says, is the hallmark of lust: bloodthirsty desire for power and unwillingness to look at the victim as a person. The same is true of pornography. Artwork will always be distinct from this attitude.[/quote]
amazing post! thank you!!

[kateri05]

i sr. wendy! she has great art books with beautiful catholic art, and some are even for kids!

[Cow of Shame]

[quote name='Seven77' post='1342388' date='Jul 27 2007, 07:59 PM']2. Isn't having a woman pose for tasteful nude art like treating her like an object---how can she "be naked without shame" in this context.[/quote]

Sounds like the kind of reasoning that might have been used back in the day to ban dissecting human bodies, even to advance learning about human anatomy.

[Thy Geekdom Come]

Nudity in art is good if it upholds the dignity of the human person. Otherwise, it's unnecessary and probably immoral.

[Thy Geekdom Come]

[quote name='Seven77' post='1342388' date='Jul 27 2007, 05:59 PM']Our society has devalued the dignity and beauty of human body so much that some people may have valid difficulty with nudity in art even if it is done tastefully. I'm kind of weak myself.

1. I think the female human body is very beautiful...why the 'need' for a Renaissance type nude painting?[/quote]

Perhaps to help restore the dignity of women through proper art.

[quote]2. Isn't having a woman pose for tasteful nude art like treating her like an object---how can she "be naked without shame" in this context.[/quote]

Well, that's a good point. I don't think it's treating her like an object, though, if she is participating actively in portraying feminine beauty. Participation makes her a subject. That isn't always true in other areas, of course...if a woman is participating in a man's lust, for instance, she remains an object, but I would venture to say that if a second party (the woman, the artist being the first party) were participating in the same way as the first party and in an intrinsic good (and I would propose that some nude art can be intrinsically good), then it is moral (analogously, if instead of lusting a man sought union and procreation with his wife [an intrinsic good] AND she participated in the same way and to the same degree he did [i.e. they both were totally self-giving], THEN it would be moral).

Of course, the question remains whether it would be an occasion of sin for a man to see a woman nude, even for art, and I would say, IMHO, that some (few) men may have the grace of seeing women in the right light in order to do this (keep in mind that Pope John Paul the Great said that lust and pornography was a problem of seeing too little of a woman, not of seeing too much), but personally, I would rather artists portrayed women as they are portrayed classically: seeing breasts is fine in certain contexts, art being one, so long as it's not a near occasion of sin for the particular individual, but seeing female genitalia is usually glossed over in classical art (i.e. the area is blank, without any sign of anything being present), which I think is a reasonable concession to men.

[quote]3. We will all be [i]wearing[/i] white robes in Heaven, right?[/quote]

I tend to think that's just a symbol. Why will we need robes where there is no lust and no undesirable weather?

God bless,

Micah

[Lil Red]

thanks micah

[thessalonian]

JP II had all the loin clothes that had been painted over the artwork in St. Peter's removed. The body is not covered because it is bad but because allowing the lust of others to disrespect it is bad. Nudity in itself is not bad. Lust is and degrads and makes the human body a matter of consumption. Christopher West goes through this in some detail in his Theology of the Body series.

Blessings

[Groo the Wanderer]

[quote name='Raphael' post='1344277' date='Jul 30 2007, 01:51 AM']Why will we need robes where there is no lust and no undesirable weather?[/quote]


no bad weather and no robes...I'm gonna get a suntan! (or would that be a Sontan?) ba-dum-ching!

[Thy Geekdom Come]

[quote name='Groo the Wanderer' post='1344481' date='Jul 30 2007, 12:56 PM']no bad weather and no robes...I'm gonna get a suntan! (or would that be a Sontan?) ba-dum-ching![/quote]