We know what we are, but know not what we may be

This drawing was taken from an image online, that i cropped to focus on the face. The woman on the original image was very muscular and i wanted to see if i could carry this from the body into the face. I left in the bulk and muscles in the shoulders and chest, like a little taster. Implying the idea of a less famine body shape. Which reminded me of something i read about Lucian Freud, about treating the head the same as any other limb. And that you can create a portraiture through the body. Freud said, “I realized that I very much wanted the figure not to be strengthened by the head. I wanted the likeness, the portraiture to come out of the figure.”(Feaver, 2005, P36/37)

In regards to Lucian Freud whenever he spoke about his work in relation to his depictions of people he would always refer to them as portraits, whether they be of full length nudes or of just of a persons face.

Because i like drawing/sketching, i personally think that my work is best strengthened in a negative/grey scale. I do appreciate the colours of flesh  especially in the works created by Jenny Saville and Lucian Freud, where they have depicted the meaty flesh, allowing the paint to represent/ mimic the skins natural state. But for me personally i like the authenticity of black and white. It reminds me of old photographs.

Before i started this subject on the female nude i created a few works on portraiture. I believe that portraiture is very important. The works that i created where not created by making an exact replica of that person by using squares to ensure everything was in the “right place”.  That for me is very restricting. When i’m creating an image i want to capture that persons characteristics the truth not the facts. I want my works to go beyond the scope of a photograph. If i wanted the photograph to be my work then i wouldn’t create drawings and paintings as the photo would be sufficient. But i like the interaction and the motions the process that leads to a different outcome. From my portraits people where very positive in the way that i had gotten to know my “subject” (the person to whom i was painting) and then was enable to create an accurate depiction of that person using the photograph of them as just another source of information. I had managed to capture there character/ personality. And i think that was what Lucian Freud was trying to push forward, that his works where personal and his relationship with the subject made his work unique and is what separated him from other artists.

I decided to quickly sketch and paint of the same picture, to try and get an effect by creating quick lines and brush strokes to emphasize the shapes that build up the arm and body. It is far from being an accurate or to scale but that’s OK. I do not want my images to be an exact replica of the image i am drawing or painting. I want my emotion and my perspective to change the image through the process. Making the image my own. Making it unique to me. John Currin once said that its OK to draw badly. ” it’s just as easy to draw something good as you would badly, but the reason why i choose to draw things badly (not realistic) is because people aren’t convinced anymore by realistic impressions.” ( Cook, A. 2011, P.14)

Like my painting i have a particular style with the way that i draw and my source material. Although i like the idea of real life drawing, it is not easily accessible when creating works on the female nude. So like Jenny Saville and John Currin i have decided to create work from second hand source material as it is easy to access. I have taken a few images from the internet on muscular women (mainly body builders). The reason why i have chosen to create images from these very muscular women is that they are great examples of the over enlarged muscles that you would genuinely associate with men. But like Jenny Saville i have also researched body builders and the human bodies muscular system to get a better understanding of the sections that build up the muscles. For an example the stomach is made up of many muscles and sections that need to be worked out/ bulked up differently to build up one part of the body. Because of the male dominance surrounding the muscular form, it is not socially accepted for women to be as muscular as men. Women are generally perceived as the fairer sex. So would a muscular women be considered or not be considered as sexually appealing because they do not fit society’s idealized conception of what the female nude should look like?

From my research, and looking at the female nude, it got me thinking of the three Somatotypes :- Ectomorph (thin),Endomorph (round) and mesomorph (muscular).

The old masters usually painted in an idealized manner using social acceptance to push there nudes, these women where usually thin (ectomorph) to appeal and attract the audiences attention. Whereas Jenny Saville and Lucian Freud painted realistic women and even focused particularity at some point point on larger women ( endomorph), such as Savilles painting on Branded and Freuds paintings on Benifit supervisor. These women were not considered attractive they were obese with folds of skin that hung over more skin concealing the natural shape of the human body. There body pale with markings, blotches, sores and full of imperfection and irregularity.

So why is there few muscular women (mesomorph) in the public eye? Could this be due to society’s acceptance of the muscular shape, mainly being dominated by males. Evidence of this could be linked to many artists going back to Roman times when sculptures of men were depicted with large muscles to enforce the notion of their warriors and the power and strength. Renaissance carried this through too with Michelangelo and his sculpture of David.

But there is very little evidence of muscular women so this is something that i intend to look into more and create work from.