Why are there many works of Western oil painting art that show the naked human body?

Friends who like oil painting art is not difficult to find, in a large number of heirloom western classic oil paintings, there are many works of expression of the naked human body. Many of them are masterpieces of world-famous oil paintings. For example, Leonardo da Vinci's "Leda and the Swan", Michelangelo's "Genesis", Raphael's "Mei Hui San Mei Shen", Giorgione's "Sleeping Venus", Titian's "Field Ensemble", Dürer's "Adam and Eve", Rubens's "Earth and Water", Rembrandt's "Nadège", Velásquez's "Venus in front of the Mirror", Goya's "Unclothed Maha", Engel's "Spring", Bouguereau's "Coming of Spring". Gros's The Coming of Spring, Renoir's The Great Bather, Gwynedd's The Goddess Athena, Matisse's The Dancing People, Picasso's The Women of Avignon, and so on.

Frankly speaking, the naked human body works of art and our real life as well as aesthetic habits seem to be a bit out of place in the Eastern paintings are also rarely seen, people can not help but ask: why there are so many naked human body works of art in the Western oil paintings? The author tried to analyze, that there are mainly the following three reasons:

One, historical and cultural reasons

We say that the creation of any art has its own historical background and cultural soil, including human body painting, including Western body art is also so.

As early as 2500 years ago in ancient Greece and Rome, the West has a cultural practice of human body worship. At that time, people believed that the beauty of the human body was the most beautiful existence in the world, the best gift from the Creator to mankind. And it was believed that the gods in heaven looked like human beings with the same appearance and the same body. Therefore, craftsmen, artists with jade, marble and other stone, with masculine and robust features of the male human body and feminine and graceful features of the female human body carved into statues for people to worship and enjoy, such as the "Breadth Thrower", "Venus with a broken arm", "wipe sweat stains on the athlete", "Laocoon" and so on, is considered the earliest Western sculpture of the human body art.

From the 4th century to the 13th century, the Western historians called the "long dark Middle Ages", a period of feudal religious theocracy, Western culture and art, a silence and even a fault. 14th century, in a variety of factors, the West opened the revival of ancient Greek and Roman culture and art as a slogan, to oppose the religious theological confinement, and to revive the ancient Greek and Roman culture and art. In the 14th century, under the influence of various factors, the West started the Renaissance movement with the slogan of reviving the culture and art of ancient Greece and Rome, and with the idea of "humanism" as the main theme to oppose the confinement of religious theology and advocate the liberation of human nature. Repressed artists used culture and art, including painting, to express the normal desires of human nature, the pursuit of a better life, people are the masters of the world, and human thought and emotion.

At that time, the oil painting material had just been successfully developed, how to use this new painting material to better express the theme of the "Renaissance" idea, in view of the religious theocracy was still dominant in the background of the times, the painters to the ancient Greek and Roman myths and legends and Biblical stories as the subject matter, to the ancient Greek and Roman human body sculpture as a model, and carefully studied the human body as a model, and the human body as the theme of the "Renaissance". Sculpture as a model, careful research and exploration of scientific and rigorous forms of oil painting, the creation of a large number of realistic human body oil painting, widely welcomed by the people. During this period, many of the human body paintings have been preserved and passed down, becoming classic world famous paintings.

The Renaissance, which lasted more than 200 years from the 14th to 16th centuries, became a milestone in the opening of modern Western civilization. During this period, Western painting art, especially body painting art has been unprecedented development, not only created a large number of works, but also formed a systematic theoretical system. After the Renaissance, the art of human body painting was incorporated into the art teaching curriculum of the Academy of Fine Arts of the Western countries, and in the 19th century, human body painting was further secularized, becoming a common form of expression and subject matter of Western oil painting, which was generally accepted by the public and regarded as a cultural phenomenon in the West.

Second, the reality and market reasons

Objectively speaking, the Western human body oil painting in the development process is not smooth sailing, the beginning is also a lot of resistance. For example, the Church's restrictions on the suppression of civil controversy exclusion. Spain's 17th century painting giants, the Guizhi of Velasquez painted a thousand paintings in his life, but only painted a human body oil painting ("Venus in front of the mirror"), or to get the king's asylum and is not allowed to foreign public exhibition. But needless to say, because first, the human body oil painting is indeed a more perfect display of the beauty of the human body, this beauty is irreplaceable, is full of charm, but also a lot of people can not be refused; Secondly, because of the reality of the general existence of the human body's curiosity about the psychology. This is an important factor for the survival and development of human body oil painting in the West. There is another important factor, that is, there is a market for human body oil painting.

The so-called "the world is all about profit, the world is all about profit". Engaged in the painting of the painter also want to wear clothes and food to feed their families, many times, the painter painting is to survive life. 14th century to the 19th century, many of the human body oil paintings are royalty and dignitaries with the painter to customize the drawing out. Such as the Italian Renaissance, many of the body oil paintings were customized by the Medici family, a large consortium at the time. French 19th century body oil painting master Angell's "Grand Courtesan" is King Napoleon's sister Princess Caroline of Naples customized. And so on. Because some people like, and give the price is not expensive, but also prompted many painters enthusiastic creation of human body oil painting.

Three, painting techniques and styles of reasons

Industry generally believe that in the oil painting depicts all kinds of objects, figure painting is the most difficult to depict. Because the human features and body structure and organization of the skin performance is more complex, and people are vivid, with rich and varied movements and expressions, and people are the most familiar. In figure painting, the human body painting is the most difficult, especially women's body painting, from the dignified and beautiful, gentle and charming knitted brows and a smile of flavorful appearance, to the rhythmic body curves, beautiful, but more difficult to carve depicted.

Therefore, the practitioners and painters are generally good figure painting, portrait painting, human body painting as a refinement to improve the ability to improve the painting modeling figurative painting and painting techniques to show the style of essential "required courses" and "hard work" to deal with. Angell said: painters who can't paint human body oil painting are not real painters. Based on such a realization, the human body oil painting has become the western painters are committed to the pursuit of happy performance of the subject matter of the painting.

To summarize, the reason why there are more works of nude human body in western oil paintings is that there are historical reasons, cultural reasons, practical reasons, market reasons, and also the reasons of the oil painting technique and style.