The Renaissance Nude

I found The Renaissance Nude exhibition at the Royal Academy a rather disjointed show. For a start, the show appears to have lost a large number of the pictures shown in Los Angeles, the other place where this exhibition was first shown (it appears to have been curated by Thomas Kren, senior curator emeritus of the Getty Museum, Los Angeles). I counted ten paintings that were exhibited in Los Angeles only, plus at least four works in the catalogue listed as exhibits but fascinatingly not shown in either location. Whatever the inconsistency about what is shown in each location, this rather small show (111 works in the catalogue, just four rooms at the Royal Academy), does not appear to explain itself very well. The claim of the catalogue is “this exhibition traces the beginnings of the naturalistic nude in European art. Although the nude continued to develop in novel and intriguing ways after 1530, it had also assumed an integral role within European art by then, offering a suitable end point for our narrative.”

Yet, as far as I can see, the exhibition doesn’t seem to be very interested in tracing the beginnings of the “naturalistic nude”, nor its end. If there are beginnings, what came before? There are representations of nudes in art going right back to post-Classical times. There are plenty of examples of nudity in medieval European art. How then was the Renaissance different? We are not told. Nor are we told what came after. There was the Counter-Reformation, and that changed attitudes to nudity in art. But none of this is visible in the exhibition itself.

Instead, the exhibition has some themes of its own, not always clearly explained but certainly present from the choice of objects displayed. Four themes are identified in the leaflet given to everyone visiting the exhibition:

The Nude and Christian Art – exemplified by Adam and Eve;

Humanism and the Expansion of Secular Themes – the use of Classical mythology and themes in Renaissance art;

Artistic Theory and Practice – how life drawing became standard practice during the Renaissance;

Personalising the Nude – which is exemplified by Isabella d’Este and the decoration of her studiolo.

The exhibition also raises some themes of its own, among which I noted:

• Religious art used as an opportunity for sexual themes, including St Sebastian and representations of Bathsheba. There are no fewer than six representation of St Sebastian in this exhibition. Several representations of gruesome torture on naked bodies: St Barbara about to have her breast removed, and many naked males impaled on thorns. There are also two representations of Hercules and Antaeus, perhaps implying that males in naked combat is sexual in origin. 

• The bathhouse as a place where heterosexual and homosexual physical passion was revealed.

All that leaves a lot of themes unsaid. Off the top of my head, I would suggest the following:

•         The northern and southern tradition of representing the nude (described by Kenneth Clark in his The Nude).
•         When and why did the Renaissance switch from condemnatory depictions of nudity to celebrations of it? 
•         If Bathsheba, why not other Biblical episodes used as an excuse to depict the female nude, such as Susanna and the Elders?
•        The changing attitudes to representing the genitals. In a few works here, the penis is displayed, but in many of them, the penis is masked. Similarly for the female genitalia. Different attitudes seem to co-exist at the same time, for example, Michelangelo’s nudes in the Sistine Chapel reveal their genitals, while Durer’s Adam and Eve have their genitals discreetly masked Why the fluctuation in attitudes to displaying the genitalia?  
• Titian’s painting of sacred and profane love has the sacred woman naked and the profane woman clothed, while in this exhibition, Dirk Bouts’ The Way to Paradise and The Fall of the Damned has the righteous clothed, and the damned naked. Why the contrast?
•         Why the Renaissance often depicted wildly over-muscular males, who look as if they have been fed on steroids since the age of 16, and yet these same males always have a miniscule penis? There is, remarkably, one remarkable self-portrait by Durer in the catalogue (not in the exhibition) that depicts him with a normal-sized penis. The Renaissance seems to have switched from a stylized vision of puny males and females to an idealized image of the male but remaining stylized in certain ways.

Hence, I would rename this show “some miscellaneous themes that interest the curators when studying images of the nude in the Renaissance”. It assumes, rather than presents, the major themes critics have discussed for many years over nudity in the Renaissance. Essentially, that theme is how and why Michelangelo’s David (Florence) is so different to Van Eyck’s Eve (Ghent).

Since the exhibition itself tells us so little, it makes sense (if you have the money) to turn to the catalogue. But the catalogue does not seem written to make things much clearer; it’s certainly not intended as an introduction to the Renaissance nude.  The catalogue is one of those sit-on-the-fence kind of works, that tries very hard to make sure it never says any one thing too firmly. The catalogue takes for granted, for example, that we all know “the familiar humanist notion of the triumphant, classicizing male nude”, but then really muddies the water by continuing to state, of this notion, that “it aligns with, but also troubles a larger fabric of western European Christian tradition”.  Who is this humanist notion familiar with, apart from the authors? It then points out, usefully, that the Renaissance tradition of the “idealized male form became an expression of inner virtue and even of cosmic order”. These words appear almost alongside the full-page photograph of Michelangelo’s David, so it’s difficult not to agree with this statement.  Yet Kenneth Clark is castigated for “normalizing the male nude in the early Renaissance, neglecting the rise of the female nude in fifteenth-century northern Europe”.  Is that Mr Clark’s limitation, or is it borne out by the art? This text appears alongside van Eyck’s depiction of Eve from the Ghent altarpiece, another locus classicus of the nude in Renaissance art. But it is clear from this image, compared with Michelangelo David, that the idealization of the female was towards fertility, as can be seen by the enlarged belly that is very common in northern depictions of the naked female. Certainly these depictions are very different to the Italian, classical male nude, which suggests, yes, inner virtue.

There is one picture in the show that shows the classical female nude: the amazing Titian Venus Anadyomene, of around 1520, which has no counterpart in northern Renaissance art. This painting dominates the whole exhibition,  and not surprisingly is used for the cover of the catalogue. The authors of the catalogue, however, nowhere state why this image be so overwhelming, compared with the rest of the show. Perhaps they don't want to admit that for many people, classical nudes are what comprises fine art, and this is one of the best. 

Incidentally, who is the catalogue written for? It appears as an academic work, with citations throughout – yet there is a reference to Kenneth Clark on page one, with his famous distinction of “naked” and “nude”, not explained, and without any citation. Unless you were already familiar with art history works on the subject, you would not know from this catalogue introduction that Kenneth Clark had written a book called The Nude.

It is indicative of this show that the big arguments take place around images and ideas that are not represented in the show. I have discussed this show by using two illustrations that appear only in the catalogue. That seems to sum up the exhibition overall: interesting, but somehow missing (and/or taking for granted) the big story.