The Nude in Photography

The aesthetics of the nude form have been painted and modeled since prehistory. So it was no wonder that, when photography became a viable medium in the mid-1800s, one of the first subjects to pose for the infant lens was again the nude.

Many today are suspicious of the nude as serious and legitimate photography. These suspicions may be due to the proliferation of nude photographs that mostly have little or no esthetic value. Or perhaps it is the underlying doubt that photography cannot quite attain the level of fine art and this somehow lessens even the finest photographs. Whatever the current perception, the nude form in photography began as a serious artistic study by a relatively small number of imaginative photographers.

Originally, painters in France closely studied nude photographs and painted them as subject matter (most notably, EugŠne Delacroix). For these artists, this was a practical pursuit since only an expensive professional model could hold a pose for the required time it took to paint. Beyond that, there were some artful poses that even a professional could not long perform but were merely a click away for the camera.

As morality and modesty surged in the late-1900 Victorian era, the concept of public nudity fell from acceptance. So the nude (both in painting and photography) abandoned realism for the protective shroud of Impressionism.

In photography, this was achieved by imposing a blurred focus and using dense shadows. Out of this study came a series of striking nudes by photographer-scientist Eadweard Muybridge, an Englishman working in America. Painters around the world were fascinated by Muybridge's action photographs of human locomotion. Much like frames of a film, these photographs were taken in rapid succession and typically depicted nudes in the sequential acts of lying down, running, walking, and the like.

Other photographers chose to veil their nudes in billowing drapery as was evident in Charles Shenk's "Draperies in Action" series of the 1890s. In these photographs, nude models are seen dancing while scantily shielded in sheer, flowing material. Some posed against curtained backdrops while others lay draped in repose. These images are renowned for their classical portrayal of the female nude awash in swirls of light and shadow.

As photography grew in popularity and acceptance, its standing as an art form was raised to new levels by a group calling themselves the "Photo-Secessionists." This group formed in the early part of the Twentieth Century and was led by Alfred Stieglitz. Their goal was public acceptance of photography as fine art, and they achieved this by presenting lavishly-produced photographs in their magazine titled Camera Work.

The nudes produced by these photographers were at their best when the mood and photographic quality were balanced with subtle texture and lighting. The later nudes of Alfred Stieglitz and Edward Weston marked a definitive turning point for the nude in photography. This occurred when these photographers stopped trying to prove artistic points and instead explored the camera on its own terms.

From this point on, the seemingly inexhaustible possibilities of "photographic" nude took precedence. This dynamic approach is evident in the softly-focused elegance of Arnold Genthe's "Dancers," the black and white linear clarity of Harry Callahan's compositions, and in the romantic visions of Emmanuel Sougez and J. Frederick Smith.

The works of the American photographer Robert Wilson expanded on the clear forms of Edward Weston, but with a proclivity for the fluent linearity of Japanese art. Weston's nude photos are renowned for their lighting and composition and for their sympathic portrayal of the model.

Another modern photographer who made significant contributions to the photographic nude is Ruth Bernhard, whose formally-posed figures portray a fine balance between strong form and gentle femininity. Her works appeared regularly in many books and magazines in the mid-Twentieth Century, as it was her goal to portray the female form as a fluid form of nature rather than an exploited sensual image.

In the more unconventional arena were the dynamic forms of Lucien Clergue and the uniquely-distorted forms of Bill Brandt, who was one of the best English photographers of this century. Not satisfied with merely mimicking human sight, Brandt's surreal photographs explored the nude in a distorted perspective, usually posed within an interior or a landscape setting. His photos not only provided a powerful photographic statement of the nude, but were a triumph of photographic technique as well.

Lucien Clergue tended to photograph his models in aquatic environments. Like Brandt, he rarely photographed faces, allowing instead the intimate torsos to communicate for themselves. Like the goddess Aphrodite emerging from the foaming sea, Clergue's nudes remain somewhere between nature and womanhood.

It can be argued that present-day photography is the last refuge of the nude. Yet the photographic nude is not just a realistic image that the progressive Nineteenth Century painters abandoned. In the works of the best photographers, the beauty and significance of the nude are portrayed with a graphic directness that is unique to the camera. In a photographic medium, the nude has been seen in ways that had never been previously conceived.