BODY OF ART

1 ABOUT THE BOOK

Interestingly, and surprisingly, there has never been an illustrated book focusing on the body, one that gives not BEAUTY 12 only a complete history of how the human form has been represented in visual culture over time, but also how it has become – literally and metaphorically – the canvas on which and through which we talk about human experience.

Unprecedented in its scope and rigour, Body of Art spans THE ABSENT BODY 48 art Western and non-Western, ancient to contemporary, figurative, abstract and conceptual. Works are curated by theme into ten chapters: beauty, the absent body, religion and belief, bodies and space, sex and gender, emotion embodied, power, the body’s limits, the abject body and identity. Dynamic juxtapositions create an original and thought-provoking take on this most fundamental of RELIGION & BELIEF 68 subjects and an illustrated timeline provides broader historical and social contexts.

With works ranging from eight-armed Hindu gods and ancient Greek reliefs, to John Singer Sargent’s intriguing Madame X, from Robert Mapplethorpe’s seductive pho- tographs to Sarah Lucas’s provocative sculptures, this is BODIES & SPACE 100 more than a book of representations. Bringing to life the diversity of cultures through the prism of the body, it cele- brates and communicates art with accessible scholarship, to thrill and inform both enthusiast and expert.

SEX & GENDER 126

EMOTION EMBODIED 188

POWER 212

THE BODY’S LIMITS 248

THE ABJECT BODY 284

IDENTITY 306

2 3 VENUS OF WILLENDORF. ← c.24,000–22,000 BC

Limestone, H 11.1 cm (4½ in). Naturhistorisches Museum, Vienna

This small statuette, originally coloured red, is a rare stone example of a Palaeolithic ‘Venus’ figurine; most are fashioned from clay. It was found in 1908 on the site of a nomadic settlement on the banks of the Danube in Austria, and would have been brought from elsewhere, as the oolitic limestone from which it is made does not occur locally. There were never any feet, and the figure cannot stand independently, but unlike most Venuses it does possess hands, which rest above the pendulous breasts. The breasts, thighs, belly and buttocks are grossly exaggerated, and the navel and pubic opening are distinct, all of which have suggested a function for the object as some sort of fertility symbol. The face is undefined, apart from a spiral design that may indicate an elaborate arrangement of hair, and the suggestion that she is looking down has led to interpretations of these figures as having an attitude of submis- sion. It may simply be that the individual features of a face were of no significance in a figure created as a symbol of sexual fecundity and reproduction. Venus figurines held a fascination in the early twentieth century for Pablo Picasso, who kept replicas in his studio.

KRITIOS BOY. c.490–80 BC ←

Marble, H 120 cm (46 in). Acropolis Museum, Athens

Named in honour of an early fifth-century BC sculptor whose works this face resembles, the Kritios Boy can be seen either as one of the last kouros (‘youth’) figures of the Greek Archaic period (800–480 BC) or as one of the earliest surviving Early Classical (c.480–50 BC) sculp- tures. The frontal stance follows the tradition of Archaic votive sculptures, with the left leg forward and arms at the sides, but for the first time the right leg is relaxed, with the knee bent and the figure’s weight on the back leg. Moreover, the sculptor has depicted with fine accuracy the VANESSA BEECROFT. VB 46. 2001 ↑ anatomical shifts that this motion produces in the upper body, raising the left side of the pelvis Performance. Gagosian Gallery, London and curving the spine slightly, producing a sense of arrested movement. Instead of the fixed ‘archa- Clothed, we stand and look. Naked, Beecroft’s of bodies? By constructing a tableau vivant that ic’ smile, the expression is relaxed, and the slight (b.1969) women stand and are looked at. Their is cold and tense, these women in wigs and high turn of the head means that the youth no longer bodies do not deny the gaze, but their postures heels have more in common with the bored and engages directly with the viewer. This imparts a are too rigid and mathematical to be erotic; too confronting stare of Manet’s Olympia than with sense of voyeurism to the work that sets it apart conspicuous and obstinate to pass easily into the Titian’s dreaming Venus of Urbino. Beecroft com- from earlier kouroi, adding to the eroticism of the tradition of the merely beautiful. In the history of bines and questions a multitude of signs from the slim musculature of the youthful frame. The eyes European classical nudes the woman’s body has – history of Western art, fashion, advertising and would originally have contained inserts of some with few exceptions – been suggestively available. science fiction, but in all her performances the other material, adding to the sculpture’s verisi- Languid and sensual, the painted female body women remain inaccessible in their nakedness. militude, and the hair and wispy sideburns reflect coyly waits to be possessed and activated by the It is, rather, the clothed spectator who adopts the contemporary bronze sculpting techniques. spectator. But who owns Beecroft’s constellation passive posture of the observed.

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7 SANDRO BOTTICELLI. THE BIRTH → OF VENUS. 1486

Tempera on canvas, 172.5 cm × 278.5 cm (68 × 109⅔ in). Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence

Venus, goddess of love and beauty, stands naked on a seashell floating in the sea. Flying nearby, Zephyrus, the west wind, blows her ashore. Awaiting her there is one of the Horae, goddesses of the seasons; she holds a robe decorated with flowers, ready to cover Venus’s body. Botticelli (1445–1510) painted this work for the wealthy banker Lorenzo di Pierfrancesco de’ Medici to represent the Neo-Platonic concept of divine love. The picture was also among the first to represent mythological stories with a seriousness traditionally reserved for religious themes. Here, Venus is not an erotic symbol but the embodiment of beauty, the contemplation of which was intended to inspire noble thoughts. To Plato – the ancient Greek philosopher most esteemed by Lorenzo and his circle – beauty was interchangeable with truth. Botticelli has painted Venus almost as if she were a statue, rendering her flesh marble-pale. Although Botticelli’s Venus, with her attenuated neck and tilted head, adopts a more awkward and improbable pose, her stance recalls an ancient Greek prototype: the Aphrodite of Knidos (fourth century BC, now lost) by the Athenian sculptor Praxiteles. Known as the Venus Pudica (or ‘Modest Venus’), because of the position of her hands, it inspired many copies (see p.87).

8 BEAUTY BEAUTY 9 EADWEARD MUYBRIDGE. RUNNING ↑ UMBERTO BOCCIONI. UNIQUE → MAN (PLATE NO. 60 FROM ‘ANIMAL FORMS OF CONTINUITY IN SPACE. 1913 LOCOMOTION’). 1887 Bronze (cast in 1931), 117.5 × 87.6 × 36.8 cm (46¼ × 34½ × 14½ in) Collotype, 17.8 × 40.6 cm (7 × 16 in) Tate, London

These 24 photographs showing a man running A superhuman marching man, his body shaped are among the first successfully to capture the by the powerful forces of wind and speed, thrusts human body in motion. They form part of dynamically forward. This sculpture embodies Muybridge’s (1830–1904) ‘Animal Locomotion’ the philosophy of Boccioni and the Italian Futur- series, commissioned by the University of ists, for whom movement, power and technology Pennsylvania in 1873. Working with professors were the essential attributes of the modern world. of physiology, engineering and anatomy, Here, both the body and the surrounding air Muybridge spent four years on the project, displaced by it are rendered in an arabesque of creating 24,000 photographs, of which 781 curves, flames and straight lines. Over more than feature men and women performing common two years, Boccioni (1882–1916) perfected these actions. Custom-built cameras operated with forms in paintings, drawings and sculptures, electrical shutters allowed Muybridge to take including a series of precise studies of human multiple exposures in sequence at regular musculature. In 1912 he published his ‘Technical intervals. The university constructed an outdoor Manifesto of Futurist Sculpture’, in which he studio with cameras placed so as to capture described his vision for a new sculptural practice. subjects from the side, front, back, and from a Objects would no longer be mere attributes or 45-degree angle. The Running Man photographs decorative elements, but would be embedded into demonstrate the action and movement of the the muscular lines of the body itself. ‘Let us fling human body’s limbs and muscles in a way that open the figure’, he wrote, ‘and let it incorporate had previously been impossible. Although within itself whatever may surround it.’ Boccioni’s originally intended as a scientific study aid experiments translating dynamism and force (as indicated by the anthropometric grid behind into sculptural form were cut short when he was the subject), the photographs of this anonymous wounded while fighting in the Italian army in runner have transcended their original context 1915. The following year, almost recovered from to become iconic images in the history of his injuries, he was killed in a fall from a horse photography and represent an important step during cavalry exercises. in the development of cinematography.

10 BODIES & SPACE BODIES & SPACE 11 HENRY FUSELI. THE NIGHTMARE. 1781 ↓

Oil on canvas, 101.6 × 127 cm (40 × 49 7/8 in). Detroit Institute of Arts, Michigan

In the late eighteenth century the nature and well as fragments of everyday experience clearly origins of dreams were popular topics of discus- intrigued Fuseli. (The age of reason had begun to sion, and visions of the night featured heavily ascribe the origins of dreams to physical causes in the Gothic novels then coming into vogue. such as indigestion, and a rumour circulated In Western art, however, dreams were still rela- that Fuseli deliberately ate raw pork in order to tively unexplored territory. Fuseli’s (1741–1825) induce dreams.) Yet here, rather than illustrating obsession with picturing sleep and dreaming the vagaries of a dream, Fuseli conveys the un- found its most famous expression in The Night- mistakeable terror and suffocating oppression of mare, which was greeted with both horror and a nightmare. In spite of the somewhat pantomime admiration. It was not just the hideous squatting presence of the horse, the crouching incubus creature that excited interest, but the fact that this – a demon of the night that preys upon human incubus, the horse and the girl’s submissive pose women while they sleep – can still elicit a distinct all had obvious sexual connotations. The idea that sense of fear in viewers. dreams might contain supernatural properties as

EDWARD HOPPER. ↑ SUMMER IN THE CITY. 1949

Oil on canvas. 76 × 51 cm (30 × 20 in). Private collection

A woman in a red dress sits hunched on the edge of a bed. With her arms folded, she stares glumly into space. Behind her, a naked man lies face down on the bed, his head buried in a pillow. The body language of this couple suggests a deep tension. Summer sunlight streams through the window and illuminates the woman but leaves her companion in shadow, further emphasizing the emotional distance between the pair. The artist Josephine Nivison, Hopper’s wife, actually modelled for the legs of the male figure. The dis- satisfaction she felt with the sexual dimension of her marriage to Hopper (1882–1967) is well docu- mented and probably informs this uncomfortable scene with its sense of voyeurism. The bodily intimacy recently experienced by this couple has given way to melancholy, alienation and despair. Hopper’s original title for the painting was Triste Apres l’Amour (‘Sad After Love’); but worried that this might jeopardize its sale, he retitled it Summer in the City.

12 EMOTION EMBODIED EMOTION EMBODIED 13 JOSEF BEUYS. THE FELT SUIT. 1970 ←

Felt and wood (edition of 100). 170 × 60 cm (67 × 23⅔ in). Tate, London

Displayed above the heads of viewers, elevated and untouchable, Beuys’s Felt Suit is both a secular relic and a surrogate self-portrait. A sculptor, performance artist, political activist and unconventional thinker, Beuys (1921–86) was high priest of the avant-garde in post-war Germany. During his lifetime he became a cult figure, largely as a result of the personal mythology and identity that he created for himself. Beuys emerged from the wreckage of Germany’s recent past as a type of modern shaman whose tools included fat and felt. To him, these organic materials were emblems of healing: fat is a nurturing, body-sustaining substance, and felt has insulating properties. Produced as a multiple (in a reasonably afford- able and accessible limited edition), Felt Suit was modelled on one that Beuys wore in an anti-war action that he performed in Düsseldorf in November 1970. In its colour and cut the suit appears utilitarian, and the fact that it has no fastenings suggests that it might be a prisoner’s or convict’s uniform, symbolic of the body it once encased. However, Beuys explained that the character of the material dictated the lack of buttons and buttonholes, since the suit was not intended to be worn but instead to signify spiritual or evolutionary warmth.

GILBERT AND GEORGE. THE SINGING → SCULPTURE. 1970

Performance. Nigel Greenwood Gallery, London

‘Being living sculptures is our life blood, our des- tiny, our romance, our disaster, our light and life’, wrote conceptual artist duo Gilbert and George, who presented themselves as ‘living sculptures’ in the 1960s and 1970s. For The Singing Sculpture, the artists covered their hands and faces in bronze powder, dressed in tweed ‘responsibility suits’, as they called them, and stood atop a table while singing along to the 1930’s standard ‘Underneath the Arches’ playing from a tape recorder below. When the song finished, one of them stepped down to rewind the tape so they could perform the whole routine again. This sometimes went on for up to eight hours. Rather than trying to embody the classical virtues that inspired the idealized figurative sculpture of antiquity and the Renaissance, Gilbert and George looked to lowbrow sources, such as pop music and the acts of metallic-painted street performers who pose as statues for tips. And unlike professional singers or actors, Gilbert and George made no attempt to astound their audience through their stage presence and performed with minimally stiff and awkward movements. The work’s inno- vation derived not from virtuosity in a medium – sculpture, theatre or music – but rather through the conceptual framing of the living body in an art context.

14 THE ABSENT BODY THE ABSENT BODY 15 LUCIAN FREUD. BENEFITS → SUPERVISOR SLEEPING. 1995

Oil on canvas. 151.3 × 219 cm (59½ × 86 ¼ in). Private collection

Lucian Freud’s full-length portrait of Sue Tilley (a Social Security official who posed for the picture at night so as not to interfere with her office hours) responds to a long Western tradition of reclining female nudes, as seen, for example, in Giorgione’s Sleeping Venus (c.1508–10). Yet here Freud (1922–2011) daringly forsakes the idealized body of a traditional sleeping Venus with soft, luminous flesh and long, slender proportions. Through his unflinching realism and the deadpan, slightly overhead vantage point, which flattens the background and thrusts the figure closer to the picture plane, Freud intimately exposes the aesthetic of a real body. He renders the pull of gravity upon Tilley’s flesh with sensitivity and ob- serves subtle changes in skin tone – for example, the cooler flesh colours swirling around her right thigh transition to warmer yellow and pink on her knee. He treats paint as flesh by using heavy impasto to build the texture and shape of human forms (forms that resonate in the billowing cush- ions of the floral patterned couch). The whole painting seems alive with flesh, as the colours of the skin echo in the earth tones of the setting.

DANA SCHUTZ. RECLINING NUDE ← FROM ‘FRANK FROM OBSERVATION’. 2002

Oil on canvas. 121.9 × 167.6 cm (48 × 66 in). Private collection

This painting is one scene from a series of post-apocalyptic scenarios dreamt up by Schutz (b.1976). Frank, a fictional subject, is the last man on Earth, and Schutz the last remaining painter (and woman). Stretched out on a beach, sun- burnt-pink, scruffy and obliging, Frank poses like a pin-up, yet his sexuality is somehow benign. Despite being the only surviving specimen of masculinity, in his isolation he is emasculated. YASUMASA MORIMURA. PORTRAIT (FUTAGO). 1988 ↑ By inventing a world where Frank is her only subject, and by extension her only available Chromogenic print with acrylic paint and gel medium. 210.2 × 299.7 cm (82¾ × 118 in). Edition of 3. muse, Schutz subtly subverts the tradition of the reclining nude, in which women have historically Yasumasa Morimura’s art is never quite what it In his re-appropriation of the odalisque, a slave been painted as passive, receptive and suggestive seems. For his ‘Daughter of Art History’ series, or concubine in a harem who is usually depicted odalisques in service of the male gaze. By taking Morimura restaged famous paintings from the as a reclining nude, Morimura calls attention portraiture back to her own imaginary ‘ground art history canon that he was taught in school to the orientalism, and perhaps misogyny, in zero’, Schutz makes Frank both model and fool. in Japan (where he learned about Western art, Manet’s work and in Western art in general. While In his philosophical novel Thus Spoke Zarathustra rather than Asian), using elaborate scenery, the African servant from the original painting (1883–91), philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche props, costumes and makeup. Morimura (b.1951) remains in Morimura’s re-creation, the sleeping disparagingly describes the ‘Last Man’ as a figure has himself assumed the role of protagonist in cat at the end of the bed has been replaced by who is tame, mediocre and uninspiring; a man re-stagings of masterpieces by Édouard Manet, a maneki-neko, a beckoning cat figurine that is who ‘lives the longest’ and makes ‘everything Johannes Vermeer, Frida Kahlo, Rembrandt van believed to bring good luck. Morimura’s self- small’. Under her active and lampooning brush, Rijn and Leonardo da Vinci. In Portrait (Futago), portraits as famous women from art history and Frank’s body becomes the property of Schutz – his reinterpretation of Manet’s Olympia (1863), the popular culture break down the pairings between a plaything, the butt of a joke, a Nietzschean loser. female European prostitute is now an Asian male. male and female, as well as East and West.

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TANIA BRUGUERA. THE BURDEN OF GUILT. 1997–9 →

Decapitated lamb, rope, water, salt, Cuban soil. KEY SALES POINTS

In the late 1990s, Bruguera (b.1968) began a series of highly visceral, metaphorical perfor- mances that commented on the history of the Cuban people and contemporary guilt felt about the nation’s foundation during which the island’s native population all but eradicated. The Burden of Guilt is inspired by a story of the collective suicide of a group of indigenous Cubans who ate dirt until they died in an act of rebellion against their Spanish oppressors: literally consuming their own ancestral land and gaining ownership over the destruction of their culture, heritage and bodies. Bruguera re-enacted this solemn gesture, The first book to celebrate the beautiful and provocative rolling dirt mixed with salt water, symbolizing tears of sorrow and regret, into small balls, and slowly eating them over several hours in an act of penance. She appeared naked except for the carcass of a slaughtered lamb hung from her ways artists have represented, scrutinized and utilized neck, all at once resembling a shield, gaping wound and sacrificial offering. Brugera’s work examines fundamental questions of power and vulnerability in relation to the personal, political and collective body, and typically features the the body over centuries artist performing physically demanding rituals. Having relocated from Cuba to live in the US, her early work involved re-stagings of corporal performances by another exiled Cuban artist, Ana Mendieta. BEAUTY Examines art through that most accessible and relatable lens: the human body

‘MAYA RELIEF OF ROYAL BLOOD-LETTING’ (YAXCHILÁN LINTEL 24). c.AD 725 ↑

Limestone, 109 × 74 cm (43 × 29 in). British Museum, London

Lintel 24 was one of three carved lintels installed studded with thorns, but the discovery of 146 above doorways in Structure 23 at Yaxchilán, a obsidian blades in a tomb in Structure 23 that Maya city in Chiapas, Mexico. Commissioned by may belong to Lady K’ab’al Xook suggests instead the ruler that it depicts, the carving records a roy- that these were embedded in the rope. The lintel’s There are no directly comparable titles in the market; al blood-letting ceremony that took place on 24 carving is unusually realistic and highly detailed, October AD 709, according to the glyphs at upper even down to the strings holding the figures’ left. The King of Yaxchilán, Shield Jaguar II (r. wrist cuffs. Shield Jaguar II wears a pendant of AD 681–742), holds a flaming torch over his wife, the sun god on a bead necklace, and it has been Lady K’ab’al Xook, as she pulls a rope through suggested that the mask on his headband may this is the only book to examine the subject in such depth her tongue. Blood curls are shown on her face actually be a shrunken head, used as a symbol of and drips onto a basket of papers that will later power. be burned. It was long assumed that the rope was and scope

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Diverse and multi-cultural, it explores the manifestations of the body through time, cultures and media

GUSTAVE COURBET. THE SLEEPERS. 1866 ↓ Oil on canvas, 135 × 200 cm (53 1/8 × 78¾ cm). Petit Palais, Musée des Beaux-Arts de la Ville de Paris Visually arresting, it will surprise, inspire and inform Gustave Courbet’s The Sleepers shows two women Courbet (1819–77) was a pioneer of the nine- in a sensuous post-coital nap and marks one of teenth-century realist movement and caused the first explicit depictions of lesbianism in art. controversy with works such as A Burial at Ornans The two bodies entwine in ecstatic abandon – the (1849–50), featuring ordinary people presented at rumpled sheets, loose hairpin and broken string a grand scale that was typically reserved for histo- art lovers everywhere of pearls a frank testament to their passionate ry painting. Commissioned by a private Turkish activities. The painting portrays the lovers as collector in Paris, The Sleeperserotic content was contemporary figures, without the conventional considered so taboo that it occasioned a police artifice of mythology. The theme of lesbianism, report in 1872 when displayed by a dealer and representing a rebellion against bourgeois mores, was not publicly shown until 1988. However, both attracted numerous writers and artists in nine- The Sleepers and Courbet’s graphic depiction of teenth-century France, including Charles Baude- female genitalia, The Origin of the World (1866), laire (1821–67), whose 1857 Fleurs du Mal poetry opened the way for a realistic exploration of collection reportedly inspired this painting. female sexuality in art.

Over 400 artists featured: works range from 11,000 BC hand stencils in Argentine caves to videos and performances by contemporary artists such as Marina Abramović, Joan Jonas and Bruce Nauman

SARAH LUCAS. AU NATUREL. 1994 ↑ Mattress, water bucket, melons, oranges and cucumber. 84 × 168 × 145 cm (33 × 66 1/8 × 57 in). Saatchi Gallery, London Follows in the tradition of bestsellers such as The Story

Lucas (b.1962) rose to prominence as part of the A number of Lucas’ works have used food to generation of ‘Young British Artists’, whose work represent the body – fried eggs as breasts, a kebab MICHELANGELO BUONARROTI. DAVID. 1501–4 often employed visual puns and witty one-liners or raw chicken as female genitalia. Here, the use of Art, The Art Book, The Photography Book and 30,000 more common to advertising and popular culture of melons, oranges and a cucumber refer to a Marble, H 4.34 m (169 in), including base. Galleria dell’Accademia, Florence than fine art. bawdy, unsophisticated comic humour that has existed across cultures for generations, but which Michelangelo’s sculpture depicts David moments original intended location was atop a buttress the original moved to the city’s Galleria dell’Ac- Throughout her career, Lucas has repeatedly is not usually found in the context of a gallery. before he will slay the giant Goliath, yet the Old of Florence’s cathedral. As such, Michelangelo cademia in 1873). Aside from its magnificence, returned to the body as subject and in particular, The mattress that holds them in place refers to Years of Art Testament boy-hero appears to stand relaxed, enlarged David’s head to compensate for the ex- the Florentines perhaps felt such affection for the its visual representation outside of the realm of the most common location for sex, and yet its gently holding a stone in his hand and a sling treme foreshortening that would result in viewing sculpture because they saw themselves in the un- high art. Au Naturel is an assemblage of found slouched, stained appearance speaks of squalor over his shoulder. His idealized, youthful frame him from the ground. However, the Florentine derdog David, since the citizens of the republican objects arranged to suggest explicitly male and and grime: revealing a disparity between the posed in contrapposto pays homage to the sculp- public fell so deeply in love with the work at its city had in 1494 ousted the ruling Medici family female bodies. The title is an expression used to mundane reality and romantic fantasy. ture of the ancient Greeks. Yet his calm body be- unveiling that it was decided to display it promi- from power. describe being naked in a positive light – as lies his tense countenance as he contemplates the nently in front of the Palazzo della Signoria, the nature intended without the constraints of cloth- dangerous challenge before him. The sculpture’s city’s town hall (it was replaced with a copy and ing – yet here bodies are reduces to their most basic functions, existing only as sexual parts.

22 BEAUTY BEAUTY 23 24 SEX & GENDER SEX & GENDER 25 Perfect gift for the holidays, a classic in the making and an indispensable reference for any home library

Book specifications Cover image

Binding: Hardback with cloth binding Robert Mapplethorpe Format: 305 × 238 mm (12 × 9 ⅜ inches) Self Portrait, 1976 Extent: 440 pp © The Robert Mapplethorpe Foundation Number of images: 550 col. Courtesy Art + Commerce Word count: 100,000 ISBN: 978 0 7148 6966 7

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19 BODY BEAUTY

THE ABSENT BODY

RELIGION & BELIEF OF OF BODIES & SPACE

SEX & GENDER

EMOTION EMBODIED ART

POWER

THE BODY’S LIMITS

THE ABJECT BODY

IDENTITY