I found this image in a book I borrowed from the RISD Library for the grid assignment. It's by Picasso, titled "The Bathers". Very unlike historical convention, I think it's striking that while most usually the human form is depicted quite realistically to convey a sense of the beauty and perfection of the human form, especially vis-a-vis all the sculptures from ancient Greece and Rome, and the paintings of the personification of beauty, Aphrodite herself, this, however, for me has the opposite effect. The figures in this painting are quite distorted and misshapen, and they are not reclining on couches surrounded by cherubs or admirers. I find it an interesting portrayal of the human condition: in their natural state - nudity - human beings are not always perfect. Instead, as I read from the painting, human interaction must surpass the boundaries of physical perfection.
No comments:
Post a Comment