I think this uneasy reaction has less to do with the paintings feauturing male nudity in and of itself and more with the fact that they are very unafraid of showing non-idealised bodies and almost seem to delight in pushing past prevailing male beauty ideals which is in stark contrast to most nudes in art history, be they male or female, which are usually quite concerned with aestheticism. Male nudity had certainly been a thing in the mainstream art world for quite a while (especially if you look at neoclassical paintings depicting ancient Greek or Roman scenes - you'll even be able to find quite a few featuring male genitals which, btw, you'll also find on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel), just not in a way that so deliberately undermined people's admittedly narrow ideas of human beauty. I mean, our reaction today when seeing professionally taken and edited nude photographs of a male model will likely also differ quite a bit from our reaction to seeing a nude selfie taken by an average Joe. Though, of course, another factor is the passivity of the subjects. Usually naked men in paintings were doing things and they just happened to be naked. Here they're, as you pointed out, just passive objects to be gawked at.
I think the body hair is the most shocking thing about the picture. A female nude with body hair would be as shocking i think. A lot of the classical nudes presented here were made by southern Europeans whom can be quite hairy but you rarely see body hair in any of the art.
I remember reading an anecdote about English author and cultural critic John Ruskin (1819-1900), a lover and dilettante of the arts, who was shocked and repulsed to discover pubic hair on his bride following their nuptials in 1848, the Victorian gentlemen having formed his understanding of the female body solely from Western art works, and this contributed to the unhappy marriage never being consummated.
I know her paintings are meant as critiques, but I feel a comfortability in them. Many of the nudes lack body hair, yet she decides to prominently include them. By their nature, they are not idealized, but more normal. It unmasks the viewer to see ppl as they really are and to think it doesn't shout its point. Just present itself and gets them to reconsider how they view art and people.
I was first introduced to this artist and her commitment to representing male nudity in her work in Peter Webb's seminal 1975 scholarly tome 'The Erotic Arts'. I remember Sleigh expressing there, and I paraphrase from memory, "It is vital for all of us that we remember that men can be beautiful too." Ironically, male nakedness was a regular feature in the European art academies, where life studies were done from male models. This was one reason that women so rarely were admitted for formal academic training, in that it was considered indecent for female eyes to gaze upon the naked flesh of men to whom they were not related through marriage or close sanguinity, much less for female hands to translate these forms into visual representation. Sleigh was still working, to an extent, with an inheritance of these sociocultural biases and restrictions, underscoring the subversive if not indeed revolutionary spirit of her enterprise.
6:09 “(He) isn’t idealized…” and yet I find him more strikingly beautiful than Titian’s Venus. There’s something to be said for the male vs. female gaze. Edited to add : “Our inability to see (him) as a nude…” I don’t think the discomfort (to some) to see him as a “nude” stems from our inability to objectify a man, since as you pointed out David (among other sculptures) have been nude without qualm. But rather her depiction of the rawness and interplay of masculinity (ie the hair, the muscles) and the femininity (the vulnerability, the softness of the pose, the hands) that makes the viewer feel seen in a way that (imo) Titan could never.
Yeah absolutely. Usually in historical nudes of men, the man and his male body is usually depicted as idealized, muscled, smooth and positioned in heroic or confident poses. They portray the type of masculinity patriarchal societies are comfortable with. This on the other hand portrays the male nude as vulnerable, soft, and with more regular flawed bodies (while not conventionally unattractive I'd say).
If you don't mind, maybe can you make analysis about nude vs naked? It's good that I feel more insightful to this issue about this objectification critics. But, one part I don't really understand is the fact we used to paint male nudes (or even along side the females) & sometimes people even tried to censorship naked paintings (like Renaissance's Michelanglo's Sistine Chapel with repainted with ribbon clothings). And ironicly I remembered ancient artifacts not even ashamed of nudity & even glorified our private parts as something that very much so contributed to civilization.......So, how & why we later got this specific female objectification problem if alot of time our ancestors people getting used to it? Is there even any influenced from banning, censorship, & suchs?
This was really interesting! I made some investigation around this art topic for a painting project and this gave me words for some things i was thinking as a result. Thaks! new subscriber here, i'm surprised i hadnt discovered this channel before
As for a third reason dudes don’t really wont to look at male genitalia vs the option of female genitalia same with most countries not having public baths due to many wanting alone time it’s a bit of the mind and what is appealing
Maybe this is just me being aggressively bi but I have to say I don't find these paintings uncomfortable or offputting at all. I'm not entirely sure what other people feel when they see them, but they look like any other nude painting to me.
in my opinion the real reason the paintings of men are uncomfortable is because they are painted so unflatterningly. society today is heavily focused on the beauty of women, while men are more often seen as ugly. paintings like the birth of venus are admiring the beauty of women, not objectifying them. the ancient greeks admired the beauty of the male body and pictured good looking muscular men with well defined features and tiny penises (a symbol of good leadership). these statues do not make me uncomfortable at all. they empower me and make me feel less ugly as a man. we should start seeing beauty in everyone.
Maybe...or perhaps she knew how uncomfortable it feels to be ogled by men. Being stared at, your body evaluated, fantasies formed involving you without your consent performing acts you are not interested in performing with someone you have no interest in is very disturbing. Watching men overtly indulging themselves, gorging on the delectable feast of a nude female who can't protect herself or cover herself...maybe she just wanted to break that gaze...destroy their toy...to spoil their fun.
I honestly believe that there are so many female nude portraits because women were always thought to be "the fair sex" - the female body was always thought of as something beautiful, which is generally never spoken of when it comes to male bodies. I may be wrong, but I believe that depicting women in those poses wasn't meant to be erotic (at least most of the time), but because it was always thought of as something beautiful. I always gaze at the nude female portraits and just take in the beauty of a female body, there's nothing sexual to me in that experience.
I both agree and disagree. I agree that we should have fewer nude pictures in general, but I disagree that the images referred to are being given the passes they are because they are women- rather, they are respected because they are "classical". Much like the statue of David, or the picture of God touching man - whose name I forget. The shame, I believe, is that we will easily evaluate new artwork for upright meanings, but leave statues like David in prominent display. Just because it is old, doesn't mean it is good.
Gonna be honest here, and I've heard this echoed by guys and girls alike looking at this painting. The actual unsettling thing isn't his junk, it's his weird ass haircut and five oclock shadow.
Sorry dude you're way off. It's an ugly painting. Imagine a painting in the same style with a woman showing her full genital area, it'd get the same reaction. It ain't that deep
One sometimes sees feminist artists doing pictures of nude men, but the proper equivalent in art for females would be a man with 'good genes' for breeding one way or another: either the Bad Boy - one described in the Simpsons as a 'rebel who plays by his own rules' (getting a sigh from Lisa and Marge) or the financially successful City Boy who owns a Ferrari and has an athletic body. I am not quite sure how this element of female selectivity might be rendered in pictures. That would be a good subject for a PhD - "Female artists of the past and their subjects". Perhaps male aristocrats are the equivalents of the female nude. Of course, many women have carnal relations with the Bad Boy, who is good at impregnating many women, and later look for a Type 2 male - the successful bachelor or nice guy - later in life, with whom to settle down, although the timing and life-planning can be difficult, as the latter now have sexual access to women in their early Twenties. There will be a lot of painting.
This paragraph makes no sense. Sylvia Sleigh's ideas behind her work was how society is so used to seeing a female's nude being painted, but not a mans. and especially not a man's genetalia and his body hair. It has nothing to do with male aristocrats or whatever. I think you've completely missed the point of the art.
@@amym7663 No, the Unreconstructed Hippies got over the male representation in art issue sometime around 1970, with the rest of society following later. Sleigh merely noted the disparity without giving any thought to what it might actually mean. A more interesting subject of enquiry would be: what evokes - in the female mind - the same (or a similar) reaction as that experienced by the male when seeing the nude female, in art or otherwise.
TH-cam putting a age restriction on this video of artworks with naked men but not on the videos on artworks of naked women is ironic.
And asking you for your credit card to prove your age if you don't want to wait until three days (showing your ID, of course) is the cherry on top...
And hypocritical. 🤦🏻♀️
I think this uneasy reaction has less to do with the paintings feauturing male nudity in and of itself and more with the fact that they are very unafraid of showing non-idealised bodies and almost seem to delight in pushing past prevailing male beauty ideals which is in stark contrast to most nudes in art history, be they male or female, which are usually quite concerned with aestheticism. Male nudity had certainly been a thing in the mainstream art world for quite a while (especially if you look at neoclassical paintings depicting ancient Greek or Roman scenes - you'll even be able to find quite a few featuring male genitals which, btw, you'll also find on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel), just not in a way that so deliberately undermined people's admittedly narrow ideas of human beauty. I mean, our reaction today when seeing professionally taken and edited nude photographs of a male model will likely also differ quite a bit from our reaction to seeing a nude selfie taken by an average Joe. Though, of course, another factor is the passivity of the subjects. Usually naked men in paintings were doing things and they just happened to be naked. Here they're, as you pointed out, just passive objects to be gawked at.
I think the body hair is the most shocking thing about the picture. A female nude with body hair would be as shocking i think. A lot of the classical nudes presented here were made by southern Europeans whom can be quite hairy but you rarely see body hair in any of the art.
I remember reading an anecdote about English author and cultural critic John Ruskin (1819-1900), a lover and dilettante of the arts, who was shocked and repulsed to discover pubic hair on his bride following their nuptials in 1848, the Victorian gentlemen having formed his understanding of the female body solely from Western art works, and this contributed to the unhappy marriage never being consummated.
I know her paintings are meant as critiques, but I feel a comfortability in them. Many of the nudes lack body hair, yet she decides to prominently include them. By their nature, they are not idealized, but more normal. It unmasks the viewer to see ppl as they really are and to think it doesn't shout its point. Just present itself and gets them to reconsider how they view art and people.
I was first introduced to this artist and her commitment to representing male nudity in her work in Peter Webb's seminal 1975 scholarly tome 'The Erotic Arts'. I remember Sleigh expressing there, and I paraphrase from memory, "It is vital for all of us that we remember that men can be beautiful too."
Ironically, male nakedness was a regular feature in the European art academies, where life studies were done from male models. This was one reason that women so rarely were admitted for formal academic training, in that it was considered indecent for female eyes to gaze upon the naked flesh of men to whom they were not related through marriage or close sanguinity, much less for female hands to translate these forms into visual representation. Sleigh was still working, to an extent, with an inheritance of these sociocultural biases and restrictions, underscoring the subversive if not indeed revolutionary spirit of her enterprise.
6:09 “(He) isn’t idealized…” and yet I find him more strikingly beautiful than Titian’s Venus. There’s something to be said for the male vs. female gaze.
Edited to add : “Our inability to see (him) as a nude…” I don’t think the discomfort (to some) to see him as a “nude” stems from our inability to objectify a man, since as you pointed out David (among other sculptures) have been nude without qualm. But rather her depiction of the rawness and interplay of masculinity (ie the hair, the muscles) and the femininity (the vulnerability, the softness of the pose, the hands) that makes the viewer feel seen in a way that (imo) Titan could never.
Yeah absolutely. Usually in historical nudes of men, the man and his male body is usually depicted as idealized, muscled, smooth and positioned in heroic or confident poses. They portray the type of masculinity patriarchal societies are comfortable with. This on the other hand portrays the male nude as vulnerable, soft, and with more regular flawed bodies (while not conventionally unattractive I'd say).
I love her work, to say the least. 💜🌹
So do I :)
"our inability to objectify men"
hehe he has prety hair :)
I didn't know about this artist, thank you for introducing her to me!
The fact that I am sharing the same first name with her is the cherry on top. :)
Loved it. The narration, content and video editing! Thank you for such wonderful work :)
love the amount of insight in this one
If you don't mind, maybe can you make analysis about nude vs naked? It's good that I feel more insightful to this issue about this objectification critics. But, one part I don't really understand is the fact we used to paint male nudes (or even along side the females) & sometimes people even tried to censorship naked paintings (like Renaissance's Michelanglo's Sistine Chapel with repainted with ribbon clothings). And ironicly I remembered ancient artifacts not even ashamed of nudity & even glorified our private parts as something that very much so contributed to civilization.......So, how & why we later got this specific female objectification problem if alot of time our ancestors people getting used to it? Is there even any influenced from banning, censorship, & suchs?
This was really interesting! I made some investigation around this art topic for a painting project and this gave me words for some things i was thinking as a result. Thaks! new subscriber here, i'm surprised i hadnt discovered this channel before
smashing content m8
Thank you friend!
same from your honest nudes video. very interesting stuff!
Your channel is chef’s kiss I’m impressed ! And this is one of your old video wow.
As for a third reason dudes don’t really wont to look at male genitalia vs the option of female genitalia same with most countries not having public baths due to many wanting alone time it’s a bit of the mind and what is appealing
outstanding !!
Maybe this is just me being aggressively bi but I have to say I don't find these paintings uncomfortable or offputting at all. I'm not entirely sure what other people feel when they see them, but they look like any other nude painting to me.
in my opinion the real reason the paintings of men are uncomfortable is because they are painted so unflatterningly. society today is heavily focused on the beauty of women, while men are more often seen as ugly. paintings like the birth of venus are admiring the beauty of women, not objectifying them. the ancient greeks admired the beauty of the male body and pictured good looking muscular men with well defined features and tiny penises (a symbol of good leadership). these statues do not make me uncomfortable at all. they empower me and make me feel less ugly as a man. we should start seeing beauty in everyone.
3:45 "Wendy... Have you considered that maybe... you're jell?"
Maybe...or perhaps she knew how uncomfortable it feels to be ogled by men. Being stared at, your body evaluated, fantasies formed involving you without your consent performing acts you are not interested in performing with someone you have no interest in is very disturbing. Watching men overtly indulging themselves, gorging on the delectable feast of a nude female who can't protect herself or cover herself...maybe she just wanted to break that gaze...destroy their toy...to spoil their fun.
Who the hell is “Tischn”???
guys are ugly. ones that get to the top are not pretty or like the arts. if art was for arts sake we would have lots but selling is the trick
I honestly believe that there are so many female nude portraits because women were always thought to be "the fair sex" - the female body was always thought of as something beautiful, which is generally never spoken of when it comes to male bodies. I may be wrong, but I believe that depicting women in those poses wasn't meant to be erotic (at least most of the time), but because it was always thought of as something beautiful. I always gaze at the nude female portraits and just take in the beauty of a female body, there's nothing sexual to me in that experience.
The Canvas: VERY INTERESTING!
I both agree and disagree. I agree that we should have fewer nude pictures in general, but I disagree that the images referred to are being given the passes they are because they are women- rather, they are respected because they are "classical". Much like the statue of David, or the picture of God touching man - whose name I forget. The shame, I believe, is that we will easily evaluate new artwork for upright meanings, but leave statues like David in prominent display. Just because it is old, doesn't mean it is good.
Interesting insight
Sooo coool!!!
Gonna be honest here, and I've heard this echoed by guys and girls alike looking at this painting. The actual unsettling thing isn't his junk, it's his weird ass haircut and five oclock shadow.
Sorry dude you're way off. It's an ugly painting. Imagine a painting in the same style with a woman showing her full genital area, it'd get the same reaction. It ain't that deep
but there are plenty of paintings with female genitalia out such as Courbets work
One sometimes sees feminist artists doing pictures of nude men, but the proper equivalent in art for females would be a man with 'good genes' for breeding one way or another: either the Bad Boy - one described in the Simpsons as a 'rebel who plays by his own rules' (getting a sigh from Lisa and Marge) or the financially successful City Boy who owns a Ferrari and has an athletic body. I am not quite sure how this element of female selectivity might be rendered in pictures. That would be a good subject for a PhD - "Female artists of the past and their subjects". Perhaps male aristocrats are the equivalents of the female nude. Of course, many women have carnal relations with the Bad Boy, who is good at impregnating many women, and later look for a Type 2 male - the successful bachelor or nice guy - later in life, with whom to settle down, although the timing and life-planning can be difficult, as the latter now have sexual access to women in their early Twenties. There will be a lot of painting.
This paragraph makes no sense. Sylvia Sleigh's ideas behind her work was how society is so used to seeing a female's nude being painted, but not a mans. and especially not a man's genetalia and his body hair. It has nothing to do with male aristocrats or whatever. I think you've completely missed the point of the art.
@@amym7663 No, the Unreconstructed Hippies got over the male representation in art issue sometime around 1970, with the rest of society following later. Sleigh merely noted the disparity without giving any thought to what it might actually mean. A more interesting subject of enquiry would be: what evokes - in the female mind - the same (or a similar) reaction as that experienced by the male when seeing the nude female, in art or otherwise.
The ramblings of an incel.