Nude

 A friend of mine who was teaching at an art college in Arkansas told me this. A local resident called into the local radio station and reported: “Up in the college, they’s makin’ art off-en naked bodies.” In fact, this caller was absolutely right.

Drawing from the nude figure is a long-time staple in the training of visual artists. To be able to look in a sustained and disciplined way at the nude figure is a gift. It’s an opportunity to understand the beauty, complexity, anatomy and expressive capacity of the human form. It is also a responsibility—to look sensitively and to find humanity.

Curiously, despite the degree of nudity in TV and movies, people can still be uncomfortable with nudity in visual art. A look at the work of artists like Rico LeBrun, Jacopo Pontormo, Egon Schiele, William Beckman, Alice Neel and others will affirm the worth of this activity.

My concern, though, is that artists are quitting the figure for the computer screen and replacing the demanding work of figure drawing for the cartoon.