【Body：nude = naked body ？！】
撰文｜Jacky Lau
Not sure if you know the shocking news of Hope Carrasquilla, Tallahassee School principal who was forced to resign/got fired because of presenting the world famous statue David by Michelangelo in a sixth grade art history class! A news of just last March 2023 in the USA! One of the three complaining parents considered the sculpture ‘pornographic’! Shouldn’t we skip this sculpture in a Renaissance class for kids of 11 to 12 years old? What do you think? In Hong Kong, a lady went into the gallery of my friend and complained about a classical-styled painting of a standing young male nude displayed on a side wall, arguing that children might be shocked at its obscenity!
Whatever side you take? The undeniable fact is that people could perceive an ‘unclothed’ body with very different opinions. Ancient Greco-Roman culture before the birth of Jesus Christ embraced fleshy bodies as images of the deities and pursued its most realistic representation. The choice of off-white marble coupled with exquisite craftsmanship created a wealth of stunning artworks!
In the world of classical art, paintings of human figures stood above all other subjects, such as portraiture, genre, still live and landscape. Muscular correctness and emotional complexity are by far the ultimate aim of all salon artists. In the Raft of Medusa by Théodore Géricault, one of my favorite paintings, we see bloodless muscles, frail limbs, stretching arms for help, hopeless stares, bodies interwined, screams heard, firmly composed movements, all created by a gifted hand guided by our great artist mind! Human bodies are sheer sacred embodiments of spirit and beauty! Then where is the fine line between corporal beauty and pornography? Can the simple saying ‘Beauty is in the eye of the beholder’ explain the differences!
I think those who have experience in drawing or painting could agree that once we are absorbed in such practice, the human figures before us will become objects, animate objects for which we work to give them a new life on the paper or canvas. It is life, love of life! Kenneth Mackenzie Clark, English art historian, in his book The Nude: A Study in Ideal Form, published in 1953, explains clear distinction between the naked body and the nude, of which the former means deprivation of clothes bearing connotation of embarrassment and shame while the latter carries no such connotation and is an art form. We should understand the nude sculptures such as I am Beautiful and Eternal Springtime by Auguste Rodin present to us love, desire and life which differs from obscenity which focuses on sexual acts. I am much intrigued by Michelangelo’s depiction of his statue David:
‘What spirit is so empty and blind that it cannot recognize the fact that the foot is more noble than the shoe and skin more beautiful than the garment with which it is clothed.’
Finally, I would say ‘Art is in the eye of the Beholder!！
*原文以英文為本*
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【身體：nude = naked body ？！】
不曉得你是否知道一個令人震驚的消息。塔拉哈西學校校長霍普·卡拉斯奎拉（Hope Carrasquilla），她因在六年級藝術歷史課上展示米開朗基羅的世界著名雕像大衛而被迫辭職/被解僱！ 2023 年 3 月美國的一則新聞！三位投訴的父母之一認為這座雕塑是「色情的」！！難道我們要在 11 至 12 歲孩子的文藝復興課程中跳過這個雕塑嗎？你怎麼認為？在香港，一位女士走進我朋友的畫廊，投訴側牆上掛著一幅古典風格的年輕男性裸體畫，認為孩子們可能會對它的淫穢感到震驚！
無論你站在哪一邊？不可否認的事實是，人們對「無覆蓋」的身體的看法截然不同。耶穌基督誕生前的古希臘羅馬文化將肉身視為神靈的形象，並追求其最真實的再現。米白色大理石的選擇加上精湛的工藝，創造了豐富的令人驚嘆的藝術品！
在古典藝術世界中，人物畫高於肖像畫、風俗畫、靜物畫和風景畫等所有其他主題。肌肉的正確性和情感的複雜性是迄今為止所有沙龍藝術家的最終目標。在西奧多·傑里柯Théodore Géricault的《美杜莎之筏》中，這是我最喜歡的畫作之一，我們看到毫無血色的肌肉、虛弱的四肢、渴求幫助的手臂、絕望的凝視、身體交織、尖叫聲、結構緊密的動態，所有這些都是由我們的天才之手，偉大的藝術家所實現！人體是精神，純美，神聖體現！那麼肉體美和色情之間的界線在哪裡呢？簡單英語中的一句話「Beauty is in the eye of the beholder 」就能解釋其中不同？
我認為那些有繪畫經驗的人都會同意，一旦我們全神貫注於繪畫時，我們面前的人物就會成為物體，有生命的物體，成為我們追求賦予它們在紙上或畫布上的新生命。這就是生命，是對生命的熱愛！英國藝術史學家肯尼斯·麥肯齊·克拉克Kenneth Mackenzie Clark在1953年出版的《裸體：理想形式的研究》一書中解釋了naked body (裸露身體）與nude（裸體）之間的明顯區別，前者意味著剝奪衣服，帶有尷尬和羞恥的意義，而後者沒有這樣的內涵，是一種藝術形式。我們應該理解奧古斯特·羅丹的《我是美麗的》、《永恆的春天》等裸體雕塑向我們呈現的愛、慾望和生命，這不同於注重性行為的淫穢。我喜歡米開朗基羅對他的大衛雕像的描繪：
「什麼樣的精神是如此空虛和盲目，以至於它無法認識到腳比鞋子更高貴，皮膚比它所穿的衣服更美麗這一事實。」
最後我要說的是「Art is in the eye of the Beholder !」！
