COURSE DESCRIPTION

The nude has often been at the centre of western art - some art historians have even considered it one of the West’s distinctive cultural forms. But while a walk through almost any major collection of western art will no doubt involve nudity, the history of the nude shows us that this cultural form is about more than mere ‘eye candy’ or a desire to possess visually a perfect human body.

In this course, we explore the nude from some of the earliest surviving sculptures in Europe, through the phenomenal nudes of the classical world and the Renaissance masterpieces they inspired, to the nude in modern and contemporary art. Although we proceed historically, this journey is not linear for a simple reason: the nude as an art form is neither homogenous nor unchanging and even apparently similar looking works can embody vastly different ideals. By looking closely at the nude in different times and places, we can peel off the layers of mythology that have come to cloth the nude.

COURSE CONTENT

Lecture 1: From prehistoric deities to Classical Greek athletes
In the first lecture, we take a journey from the Venus of Willendorf - one of the oldest surviving pieces of art in Western Europe - through the stylised sculptures of archaic Greece, to classical masterpieces in stone and bronze. Rather than see this as a simple linear progression, we’ll see how different ideals were expressed through the unclothed human form.

Lecture 2: From Late Antiquity to the late Middle Ages
It’s often said that the arrival of Christianity destroyed Europeans’ taste for the nude. However, the nude did not simply disappear quickly from the walls and nor did it entirely go away. In this lecture we’ll look closely at the nude during the Christianisation of Europe and its continued use in religious art.

Lecture 3: The Renaissance body
Nudes are among the most iconic artworks of the Renaissance - Michelangelo’s David or Botticelli’s Birth of Venus, for example - and the Renaissance nude created an ideal of male and female beauty that would last for centuries. But what ideals did these artworks embody? In this lecture we look at the development of the Renaissance nude

Lecture 4: From Academic studies to the new nudes of modernism
The ‘perfect nude’ was one of the crowning achievements of the Academic artist, encapsulating an ideal of beauty that linked the classical world and the Italian Renaissance to the present. Modernist artists such as Picasso and Klee, however, sought to change all of this, but others kept the nude on its pedestal, as Cezanne did with his numerous bathers. But, part of the revolutionary approach of modernism involved taking inspiration from beyond the classical tradition: archaic European sculpture and art from Africa, Oceania and the Americas.

Lecture 5: Critique and contemporary
The nude continues to play a major role in contemporary art, but often the ideals of beauty that the nude once held are overturned in a celebration of the ordinary, the authentic and the unfortunate. We see this in the works of Bacon and Freud, but also in the work of feminist artists such as Carolee Schneemann who see in the nude a lightening rod for critique or a body to be reclaimed.

LECTURER

Dr Nick Gordon is a cultural historian and artist with an encyclopedic knowledge of European and Australian art. His research on the Italian Middle Ages and Renaissance has won numerous academic scholarships and prizes (including a University of Sydney medal in History and a PhD). He has over fifteen years’ experience speaking about history and art history, from ancient to contemporary, to university and adult audiences, and regularly takes small groups to major modern and contemporary art events, including the Venice Biennale and Art Basel.

COURSE STRUCTURE

5 x 1 hour lectures. Each session includes a lecture and time for questions.

COURSE DATES

Tuesdays 7:30pm (AEST - Sydney, Canberra and Melbourne time)

6 July 2021 | 13 July 2021 | 20 July 2021| 27 July 2021| 3 August 2021

REQUIREMENTS

This course does not require any assumed knowledge, only a willingness to learn and an interest in art. Sessions require access to ZOOM (which is free), a device with a camera (such as a tablet or computer with a webcam), and an internet connection.

BOOKING

Please note that all times are in Australian Eastern Standard Time (UTC +10)