I have previously objected to the art field being subjected to quota systems from gender-based selection of directors to replacing art on the basis of the race of the artists to replacing even art critics who are the wrong gender. Now the Royal Academy will removing nudes from its public collection — not because of the inherent artistic merit but for a superficial policy to have the same number of male and female bodies on display. Gallery’s director Tim Marlow proudly announced the gender quota for art to start in March 2019 — so if you want to see art presented solely on its inherent artistic merits, you could visit the academy before that date. This is all to celebrate the 250th anniversary of the Academy with the abandonment of pure artistic selection.
The Renaissance Nude, due to open in March 2019, will be composed of 85 works created from 1400 to 1530 as the best representations of the evolution of nude art. However, the pieces will not be selected solely based on their artistic worth within that period.
The curators are simply explained as “very keen in the beginning to have an equal balance of men and women.” Per Rumberg, curator of the Royal Academy, also said that the scholars selected for the new exhibition will also be chosen with gender criteria.
The great contribution of art to humanity is its capacity for allowing people to transcend our prejudices and bias in focusing on the pure aesthetic. Great works were once featured because they were great works rather than the race or gender of its the artist or the art subject. Now even our exposure to such great work will be manipulated to satisfy modern social or political conditions. It is not an act of interpretation of art but manipulation of art. The gender of the subjects is simply irrelevant to the merit of the artistry of the work. This decision puts the gender as the preeminent criteria in removing certain works to achieve nude balance of the genders.
What do you think?
How dare they assume the gender of individuals portrayed in paintings, based merely on their anatomy!
The artist sees his model as an arrangement of light and colour. May I refer you to Kenneth Clark’s: THE NUDE: A STUDY IN IDEAL FORM.
It seems the sickness euphemistically referred to as liberalism, has infected art – hitherto a civilising influence and a source of infinite inspiration and delight.
Art History is a discipline with weak operational measures of competence, thus more vulnerable to being colonized by the stupidities adhered to by academics and NGO functionaries as a social set. A more interesting question is why this sort of inanity is so fashionable in those social circles. The appropriate policy response, of course, is stripping them of their public subsidies, and (in a manner to be prescribed by law) seizing their endowments and distributing them per stirpes among the descendants of those who donated or bequeathed shares of those endowments.
DSS – can you name all those artists, periods, styles, etc. by sight? I can. It is not an easy discipline. And it requires accepting things you may not like, but will have to teach anyway.
My inner artist is absolutely in hysterics over this. Art reflects life it cannot be governed by those rules and be truly art. But,if that’s what the fasiartistes are leaning towards does aFrida Kahlo count as neutral because she depicts both her male and female side? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anima_and_animus
Becka G – so where do you sit on the fight over the Frida Khalo Barbie not having a unibrow?
there’s a Frida barbie? (GLEE!!!!!!!!) [I may need to get one of those!!!!] but truly? It just isn’t Frida without the uni-brow….
Becka G – there seems to some problem with delivery with the Khalo Barbie. My wife has been trying to get hers for her for about 6 months now. There are questions because there in no unibrow, no approval from the Khalo family or institute (whoever has rights to her image) and the Mexican government is mad about something.
i want to share a politicized artist who actually produces very interesting works. first let me say, I am not very sympathetic to her subject. On the contrary, i really loathe a lot of anti-white rhetoric coming from self appointed civil rights inquisitors, and being white, and proud of my own ancestry, I have no part of constantly insulting white folks and demonizing them for historical reasons.
nonetheless, this is a very interesting artist: Kara Walker
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/07/arts/kara-walker-sikkema-jenkins.html
a lot of her work is also sexually explicit, so, as they say, “NSFW” if you google it
it is more base and crass to say so, than anything. it’s implied as part of good taste and need not have been announced.
the male and female bodies both represent important aspects of our shared humanity. a balance in representations of male and female has probably always been an implied part of good curating. i have spent days upon days in art museums in America and Europe and usually there is a balance in a fine collection, from the ancient sculptures to contemporary
take for example the Rodin collection nearby the big museum in Philadelphia. A special little Rodin collection in a building devoted to the purpose and a nice garden. Check it out if you are in Philly. There’s a balance of male and female. I don’t mind saying he was the greatest, in my opinion
when there is a lot more craziness afoot due to political correctness, this was a modest one.
now if they set aside 1% to depict transgender-surgery mutilated depictions, that would have been really crazy.
Clearly, artistic talent and quality is not a criteria for selection by the Royal Academy.
That is the pitfall of Affirmative Action and Quotas. It is the antithesis of a meritocracy, and rather uses identity politics as a yardstick.
Instead of being judged by your accomplishments, talent, contributions, or the content of your character, you are judged by your race, gender, ethnicity, sexuality, and any number of non consequential things that we are not supposed to be able to change.
This is racist bigotry, mainstreamed.
I used to work in the male-dominated world of science. There was nothing I couldn’t do just because I was a woman. I had to work and speak up for what I wanted. Nothing was going to be handed to me. I grew up in an era when we realized we had to prove ourselves. Since we knew we were capable, that was fine by us. Bring it. That attitude was cultivated growing up hunter/jumper, where the horse was the great equalizer. A woman could jump a course just as well as a man. So could a black woman, lesbian, or whatever. It was all about the riding, and we were essentially all wearing the same suit.
Identifying and rectifying true gender bias is fair. Creating a valuation system based on gender bias is unfair.
How very Taliban and ISIS of them.
That will involve the next step, in which SJW curators smash and burn the works of white artists and authors, or those depicting white males. Then the works done for wealthy patrons will have to go.
They’ll have a big bonfire at libraries, museums, and schools to celebrate.
I’ll pass; I go for the women.
I wish I had the body o be a male nude model.
Independent Bob – I had a roommate who a nude model in college. I am not sure they even care if you are breathing. 😉
Independent Bob, when I first learned about the need of a local college for a male model for figure drawing classes, I was told, “They don’t care what you look like”. So, here I am at 75 years of age, with too much of pot belly, posing nude for art classes. One of the instructors that I pose for complained that too many of her on call models were too thin and her students commented that the models looked too much like stick figures, So, you don’t need to be an Adonis, you just need to be able to hold a pose for 20 minutes or so. Nonetheless, I wish I looked like Michelangelo’s stature of David. Fat chance.
This is amazing. The next thing will be to paint clothes onto the paintings and to drape the nude statues with fabric. In fact, when John Ashcroft was Attorney General, he did in fact have nude statues draped at one of his speaking venues.
I am a male nude model at two of the local colleges here. At one of the colleges, a student drawing of me was posted in the hallway. Someone came along and added a swim suit to my anatomy. Several weeks later the figure drawing instructor was directed to no longer post nude drawings in the hallway. I have to note that this particular school has a few students who could be identified as Muslims by the hijab they were wearing.
So, here’re my questions: Is nude art under attack? Will the Royal Academy refuse to show nude art that is anatomically detailed? Will the Royal Academy eventually not display any nude art? Will the influence of the Muslim community eventually ban all nude art forms?
I think nude art probably makes extremely conservative sorts uncomfortable. It is part of Arts ‘purpose’, I think, to make people somewhat self-aware as it demands an internal attempt at interpreting of an external presentation. And maybe because images, unlike words, are not as easily rife with double and triple entendre, that can be a tad threatening. They draw out your very own response.
Further proof that culling the herd is long overdue.
I think that they should show representative nudes of each sex by the same artist side by side. Fair is fair. Michalangelo painted a ton of nakkid men. And how nakkid is David? The Royal Academy needs more California painters who paint only gay males. That will fill their gallery.
Lesbians also should be represented! Equal examples of gay and lesbians. And don’t forget the trannies. Realistically, only portraits of Lili Elbe should be allowed.
Determining artistic merit is too difficult?
Nuts!
Boobs in equal number, mind you.
Next they will label depictions of women as Degenerate Art.
Depends on the women !