Naked Nudity

[nudewalker]

Considering that it was almost fifty years ago if the artist does get her work out there good for her. I'd recognize it only from seeing it when she was done but I doubt at this time anyone would identify me as the subject.

[nuduke]

I wonder if posing as a nude model for a roomful of artists (and would-be artists) might be an example of naked nudity. It would not necessarily be embarrassing but being the only one naked would have to be different.

It would, I think, BT.

Being a bit of an amateur artist ('bit' being the operative word), I recently joined a life class to try and get my ability to represent the human form from abysmal up to awful and thence to terrible with a target of reaching inept within a decade.  But seriously, although I have done but one class so far (they are monthly) this gave me a bit of an insight into the very matter you raise.  Never having done a life class before, but having heard about them from someone I know who has run them for local authority-run art and craft courses, my expectation was for an overweight bloke or a portly mature woman to be the model.  Judge of my surprise when the model turned out to be a very attractive young woman in her late 20s with a voluptuous figure and long dark hair.  (Random Though; Have I related this happening already?  If so apologies).

Any way, the 9 artists were seated around the front room of a house which was of the order of 12ft x 16ft, thus not much room to swing the proverbial cat and in relatively close association with the model.  In a naturist sense, I was most impressed by the model.  She was a professional art model and seemed very relaxed in her skin.  She was naked, no draped sheets or other cover up and she took up a number of poses across the 3 hour session (break for coffee) and complied with the class leader's request for poses irrespective of whether they were sitting kneeling, lying or that exposed her genitals.  Between sessions she didn't don a robe but did come over and look at the work, sit or stand and discuss it with several of the artists.  Very relaxed naturist in my opinion.  In the break she donned a light bath robe.

The point being, you don't get more exposed that that, really, in front of a bunch of strangers whose job is to look intently at you.  So yes, it was naked nude, nowhere to hide and in this case admirably comfortable with herself.

One of the other artists noted in conversation with me after the class that not all models are so self assured.  Some are evidently rather self conscious and this also tends to make the artists a little nervous.  I also found the class very tiring as the sessions are timed to 15 or 20 mins (so the model doesn't get tired or too stiff) and the level of concentration of the artists was palpable.

Roll on class 2!

John

[BlueTrain]

From abysmal to inept within a decade? I'm sure you'll make it.

Although the nude figure, both male and female, adult and child, have been almost standard art subjects for centuries, more in some centuries than others, your comments made me think of something. Even nude, people somehow manage to reflect the period in which they lived, or more correct, the period in which the artist is working. A hundred and twenty-five years ago, the typical adult male and female looked different from the same today, to a greater or lesser degree, I believe. The differences might have been most apparent in the hair and I'm not sure if that should be considered superficial or not. But given how much attention is devoted to one's hair (our remaining plumage, so to say), it's probably anything but superficial. An exception might be when the artist is doing a work in another era, which is certainly common enough. You may have noted that Michelangelo's David may or may not have a historically accurate hairdo but it doesn't seem likely that the model for the statue was Jewish.

Anyway, nude artwork more often than not, I think, reflects prevailing fashion for what bodies ought to look like and for the most part, really did. Ancient Greek statues certainly did. So, some representation I saw of a nude couple in around 1880 or 1890 depicted the man with a full mustache and the woman with what you might call a Gibson Girl hairdo. But the male figure in the Pioneer plaque (1972 and 1973) has a decidedly early 70s hair style but is clean shaven--all over. It's probably not a good idea to read too much into such things, though. There are also artistic conventions that are followed but sometimes consciously ignored. And besides, you can't put everything into one piece of artwork.

I don't know what you say to struggling artists but in theater, it's "break a leg."

[eyesup]

Well unless Michelangelo was more talented and inventive than Leonardo or as history tells us, he didn’t have any images of the favored hair styles of the golden age of the Hebrews. Artists work in their own knowledge so we usually see a stylised rendering.

I don't know what you say to struggling artists but in theater, it's "break a leg."

Check please! Our daughter is a cellist, so we use this one occasionally.

Duane

[eyesup]

I’ve tried before, not as diligently as you John, to draw the human form. I have yet to do a good job. Maybe it requires more practice. I am a draftsman (UK draughtsman) by training, over 30 yrs., and can draw practically anything inanimate.

Not so skilled at the animated objects.

Duane

[nuduke]

Interesting and entirely true observation there, Blue Train.  Not only hairstyles but preferences in body shape, particularly of the female form do change through the ages.  Just google the subject and loads of stuff falls out from anthropology to pornography.  It's interesting to note what features were preferred in both genders across time - for instance around the 1850s being plump was thought becoming for a man as it indicated wealth correlating with over indulgence in food and drink and lack of excercise.  Times do change!


Duane, I also succeed in reproducing plants, landscapes and inanimate objects much more successfully than humans or animals.  I think it's because our brains are so powerfully imprinted with some sort of model of what we think a human looks like that it guides our hand wrongly when we try to respoduce the actuality in front of us.  In reality we just don't really know where our noses are!  Most fiendish of all is drawing hands and feet.  I have agonies trying to do these!


John

[jbeegoode]

It just takes more patience, concentration and focus to take a body and draw it rendered as it is. They can be set appropriately into correct proportions using a ruler and stick figures, then lay on to that to lighting of the reality. Yea, a face at 45 degrees takes time.
Jbee

[eyesup]

You are probably right, John about the preconceptions of the human form. I also tend to suspect that the prospect of trying to do that is intimidating knowing the end result is going to look like lab sketches by Herr Frankenstein. 

Duane

[BlueTrain]

Reading over the posts in this thread again, because I've nothing better to do,  made me think of a couple of things, which I hope I remember long enough to make this post.

Regarding photography, digital and otherwise, some early photographs were very high resolution, though in black & white. I imagine that the large negative and the long exposure for studio portraits had something to do with it. I worked in photofinishing labs for about twenty years. The salesman for one of our vendors had a collection of glass plates and our plant manager made a print, maybe 15" by 20" or thereabouts (this was over 20 years ago) and the resolution and detail was astonishing. It was a post-war photo of Lee. Although that print was remarkable, I couldn't say if it was typical or not, mainly because I haven't seen another photo that size and one shouldn't judge the original by looking at a photo in a book. That's even more true of paintings. There was an exhibit of photos taken by Victoria and Albert somewhere several years ago but the photos on display were mostly of snapshot size, quite small. Don't remember where I saw them, either, maybe in the Victoria and Albert Museum in London.

Now, regarding "naked nudity," sometimes it feels like I am more than naked when I am nude except for something on my feet and the bigger the shoes, the more naked I feel. In other words, wearing boots makes me feel more naked than just a pair of sneakers. Totally ridiculous, I know, and it's all in the mind. There is no legal distinction of course, and the legal distinctions turn on the word "exposure," as well as what is being exposed. I suppose that in a sense, that's all in the mind, too, at least of those who write the laws.

[Peter S]

A lot of the early cameras captured extremely high resolutions, because they were expensive and limited edition pieces of apparatus, aiming for quality. Reducing size and improving portability led to lower quality in return for mass production and availability (and relative cheapness). It’s taken decades for high levels of quality to creep through into mass production, affordable levels. I used to work with a photographer who highlighted another issue, that lens technology and film technology advanced at different rates, so even if a lens could capture high the film couldn’t cope, and vice versa.

The advance to digital has changed all that, of course, and most photographs, if viewed at all, are only viewed on a smartphone-sized screen.

[BlueTrain]

We had a presumably cheap camera (it was mostly cardboard) that produced relatively good photos. The thing that counted most was the size of the film. That's why press cameras used large format single-image film. "Art" photographers used the same sort of cameras. I think the gatefold photos in Playboy were taken with cameras like that. The so-called pocket cameras using 110 film took poor quality photos because the film was small. Expensive cameras had better lenses that were adjustable.

Don't believe everything you see, though.

[jbeegoode]

I think that the sense of exposure with more covering in less inhibited areas is common. The extra footwear connotes clothing, with the clothing missing, it is more incongruous, more naked looking. Cowboy boots and naked look funny, for example. It has to do with what we perceive as normal. Like someone in a suit, but missing pants. The eyes are looking back at oneself, rather than looking out, as persona, and naked. Like underwear that covers up more that a bikini, but is more naked to be in underwear.

Something like that....
Jbee

[nuduke]

Just theorising...
Since film uses very fine crystals spread on a support medium there is a limit to the resolution as presumably determined by a limit to crystal size that can be generated and spread on a backing.  In the 19th and early 20th century the picture area was relatively large.  Old wet process glass plate cameras were, like 10in x 8in or 13in x 10in or larger.  So called full plate paper film was

6½ × 8½. 

This means the picture was spread over a larger number and area of crystals so that each crystal recorded a very small area of picture giving hi res.  Compare with a 35mm camera where the same picture might be recorded on a much smaller area over 50 times smaller for the 10 x 8  example.  However good the advances in getting tinier crystals, that must explain some of the high resolution of pictures in the early days of photography but lower res in more modern times.  In more recent decades when a photographer wanted great resolution he would use a very big plate camera and film size.   


I assume digital cameras today, although they take a very small picture area on the ccd chip, vastly exceed the resolution of the old time silver halide cameras.  Although do they?  I had a quick google and couldn't find a clear answer to that but what I did discover is that there is no 'standard' pixel density.  If you have a big old ornery digital reflex camera with say 12 MPxel resolution the ccd is large say 40mm wide and the pixel size might be 3-5microns but in a smartphone you may also have a 12 megapixel camera but around 5mm wide with pixels at 1 micron or thereabouts.  So hi res cameras today have big pixels and big ccds but a relatively hi res picture can be achieved with small pixels on a small ccd.  Confusing or what?


JMF can you shed any light and help our understanding?


John

[BlueTrain]

In the old pre-Kodak days, the high resolution was only possible under controlled circumstances, such as when in the studio. Although there were many outdoor photos taken, any movement would spoil the photo. But otherwise, the process was the same, indoors or out. It is interesting to note that nudes were the subjects of photographers early on, including children. I think it has also been said that photography brought an end to highly detailed, photo-like painting but I don't believe that's true.

It might be said that we're in the post-Kodak era.

[jmf]

Just theorising...
Since film uses very fine crystals spread on a support medium there is a limit to the resolution as presumably determined by a limit to crystal size that can be generated and spread on a backing.  In the 19th and early 20th century the picture area was relatively large.  Old wet process glass plate cameras were, like 10in x 8in or 13in x 10in or larger.  So called full plate paper film was

6½ × 8½. 

This means the picture was spread over a larger number and area of crystals so that each crystal recorded a very small area of picture giving hi res.  Compare with a 35mm camera where the same picture might be recorded on a much smaller area over 50 times smaller for the 10 x 8  example.  However good the advances in getting tinier crystals, that must explain some of the high resolution of pictures in the early days of photography but lower res in more modern times.  In more recent decades when a photographer wanted great resolution he would use a very big plate camera and film size.   


I assume digital cameras today, although they take a very small picture area on the ccd chip, vastly exceed the resolution of the old time silver halide cameras.  Although do they?  I had a quick google and couldn't find a clear answer to that but what I did discover is that there is no 'standard' pixel density.  If you have a big old ornery digital reflex camera with say 12 MPxel resolution the ccd is large say 40mm wide and the pixel size might be 3-5microns but in a smartphone you may also have a 12 megapixel camera but around 5mm wide with pixels at 1 micron or thereabouts.  So hi res cameras today have big pixels and big ccds but a relatively hi res picture can be achieved with small pixels on a small ccd.  Confusing or what?


JMF can you shed any light and help our understanding?


John

Well, I'm a practitioner, not a technician. What you're saying is correct: there may be the same number of photosites, (pixels) on a large or small sensor. But the size of each of these photosites will be different. The larger they are, the more they will bring quality to the image, including less parasitic noise in low light. But the quality of the computer processing that transforms the electrical pulses into images inside the camera, and also the quality of the optics, all of this of course affects the final quality of the image. By looking at it at the real dimension and not in a very small way on a screen.  The quality of an image can be judged mainly by its magnification or printing.