Big Act Of Naked Man

Emerging in 19th-century France, Impressionist art embraced loose brushwork and plein-air painting to respond to the movement of daily life. Although the pioneers of the Impressionist movement — Claude Monet, Edgar Degas, Paul Cézanne, Berthe Morisot, Camille Pissarro, and Pierre-Auguste Renoir — are now household names, their work was a radical break with an art scene led and shaped by academic traditions for around two centuries. These academies had oversight of a curriculum that emphasized formal drawing, painting and sculpting techniques and historical themes.

The French Impressionists were influenced by a group of artists known as the Barbizon School, who painted what they witnessed in nature. The rejection of pieces by these artists and the later Impressionists from the salons culminated in a watershed 1874 exhibition in Paris that was staged outside of the juried systems. After a work of Monet’s was derided by a critic as an unfinished “impression,” the term was taken as a celebration of their shared interest in capturing fleeting moments as subject matter, whether the shifting weather on rural landscapes or the frenzy of an urban crowd. Rather than the exacting realism of the academic tradition, Impressionist paintings, sculptures, prints and drawings represented how an artist saw a world in motion.

Many Impressionist painters were inspired by the perspectives in imported Japanese prints alongside these shifts in European painting — Édouard Manet drew on ukiyo-e woodblock prints and depicted Japanese design in his Portrait of Émile Zola, for example. American artists such as Mary Cassatt and William Merritt Chase, who studied abroad, were impacted by the work of the French artists, and by the late 19th century American Impressionism had its own distinct aesthetics with painters responding to the rapid modernization of cities through quickly created works that were vivid with color and light.

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Nude sculptures are a traditional form of art around the world. For thousands of years, artists have expressed ideals, philosophy and cultural beliefs through the nude human form.

One of the oldest examples is the Venus of Willendorf, dating to the Upper Paleolithic period. From the ancient Greek Aphrodite of Knidos to Michelangelo’s 16th-century David, the nude sculpture has continued to evolve.

On a surface level, a nude sculpture portrays the beauty standards and ideals of a time and place, just as the mostly male painters of the Pre-Raphaelite movement can be seen as projecting an idea of feminine beauty that was confined to porcelain-skinned maidens, their auburn locks flowing, enacting scenes of longing or tragedy drawn from tales about Camelot or told by Dante, Shakespeare, Tennyson and Keats. On a deeper level, however, nude sculpture explores culture, traditions and beliefs. Even today, the human body continues to captivate artists and their audiences.

If you’re thinking about bringing nude sculptures or other kinds of sculptures into your home, remember: No matter how big or small your new addition is, it will make a statement in your space (busts, for example, can bring a dose of drama into an entryway). Large- and even medium-sized sculptures can be heavy, so hire some professional art handlers as necessary and find a good place in your home for your piece.

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