Concept of Ideal Body in Ancient Art to That of the Postmodern Concept - Essay Example

The notion of ideal body in contemporary art is a descendant of ‘ideal’ body as depicted in ancient art, dating back to the Greek art and the Renaissance period. Transformation of this concept of ideal body makes it hard for us to believe this fact. This paper draws important references of the concept of ideal body in ancient art to that of the postmodern concept. It outlines certain famous ancient arts portraying the content and reason for ideal body. Further, an idea of the concept of ideal body in the contemporary world of art is drawn along with its implications on culture and politics or vice versa. INDEX Contents Page No. I. Introduction 3 A historical perspective 4 II. Ideal body in the contemporary world of art 7 Technological and social considerations in framing ideal body 8 Cybernetic art 10 III. Conclusion 11 References ‘The importance of notion of the ideal body in contemporary culture?’ Introduction Art is believed to depict the events of its time and also anticipate the future events. Thus, art is viewed as a concept rather than a mere object portraying beauty. Capturing the complexity and beauty of the human body in forms of art, such as paintings, sculptures, or even in poems, has been the most interesting and sought after objective for artists from the known historical times. This is said to have attained its peak during the middle ages, including the Early and the High Renaissance, as evidenced by different types of portrayal of an ideal human body in various paintings and sculptures of ancient time. The most famous artists, both painters and sculptors, of this time known today are Giotto, Masaccio, Donatello, Leonardo Da Vinci, Giovanni Bellini, Christus Rex, and others. This period has evidenced rebirth of art and literature, rise of knowledge and intellect in many aspects. Artists during the Renaissance period had acquired technical knowledge of study of anatomy and had achieved new heights in sketching portrait, landscape, and mythological and religious paintings. While these explain the notion of ideal body in ancient art, the same has quite drastically transformed in contemporary art. Research and study on contemporary art are based on various media such as the magazines, television, video and photography besides paintings and sculptures. The base of contemporary art also seems to have changed to a great extent. The notion of ideal body and beauty in contemporary is that of outwardly beauty that incites sexuality and trend of fashion, unlike values or ethos of ancient art. A historical perspective In general, the Renaissance artists depicted joy in human beauty and pleasures of life in their paintings. They also tried to show different perspectives of things that they wanted to portray, which seemed to have descended from Giotto’s work. This art had much more meaning than beauty. Art informs life and produces changes. It creates history and enriches the lives of millions. The Renaissance was special in this way. The new changes were so profound they produced a culture and an environment that required a different approach to the explaining and understanding of God and nature. This era was a change from the medieval periods. It created an environment that allowed and even encouraged the individual artist to break with formal traditions a thousand years old. In this age, the body, nude or otherwise, was seen as a beautiful work of art. The face was viewed again as individual and lovely. Human intelligence was recognized again as a wonder. The main features of ancient art were culture, originality and the ideal human figure. As seen in the pictures of human body depicted in art that emerged in the seventeenth century, there a close resemblance or a typecast of gods, especially seen in the tradition of nude Venuses. This thought and design of an ‘ideal’ body is of divine nature and something that a normal human cannot attain. Davis (2006) describes that the ancient art visualizes an ‘ideal’ body as composed of perfect parts of living models, which in reality is impossible because nothing can be ideal in the real world. Ideal human bodies, as learnt from historical art, can be found in mythology; for example, Venus and Helen of Troy are considered as perfect pictures of ideal female physical beauty. While these form a part of the mythological figures, one of the eighteenth century paintings by Francois-Andre Vincent, ‘Zeuxis Choosing as Models the Most Beautiful Girls of the Town of Crotona’ illustrates the Greek artist lining up all the beautiful women of Crotona in order to select in each her ideal feature or body part and combine these into the ideal figure of beauty, Aphrodite (Davis, 2006). The Vitruvian definition of beauty, as defined by Alberti states, ‘the harmony and concord of all the parts achieved in such a manner that nothing could be added or subtracted except for the worse’ (Kemp & Da Vinci 2006; 89). In fact, most of the famous artists of history, including painters, architects, sculptors and musicians have considered God to be a splendid creator, trying to understand His work through the works of a goldsmith making fine jewellery or the skilful architect of awesome architectures. In the hindsight, these artists derived their inspiration from God’s most marvelous creation, the human being. This has been exemplified in many historic art works that man has ever known. A few famous examples are the Vitruvian man and Mona Lisa by Leonardo Da Vinci (1487), Doryphoros by Polykleitos, Olympia pediments etc. Art has seen a huge transformation, even in the ancient period. For instance, depiction of emotions was always avoided in the ancient Greek art unlike art that emerged during the Renaissance. Historians believed that artists tried hard to ensure emotionless visage was the final outcome of the art in Greek sculpture. This, they believed was considered as the ideal figure. For example, figure of god Apollo was considered as a model of rationality and restraint. The same was kept even in art depicting women; for example, the Olympia pediment showing no emotion even though being assaulted by half-horse monster, depicting beauty through self control that was considered as the noblest virtues possessed by women. The Greek art depicted emotions only on the monster’s face. Similarly, Polykleitos sought to portray the perfect man and to impose order on human movement, by employing harmonious proportions and a system of cross balance for all parts of the body (Kleiner, 2009). The discipline of intellectual art, in history, traces back to the most well known art by Leonardo Da Vinci, the Vitruvian man, a painting that reflects a proportional relationship of all parts, and forming a universal design. In this painting, the male figure is represented two times, one overlapping the other. One figure with straight posture and the other with hands and legs stretched outwards. The purpose of this is believed to depict the ideal body in proportions of two perfect shapes, the circle and the square. This image is supposedly a very clear explanation of an ideal form that nature has ever conceived, a notion upon which all art in historical times was based (Kemp & Da Vinci, 2006). The beauty of human body has also been compared with the dynamic forces of nature. This is known from the famous thought of Dinocrates to cut Mount Athos into a statue of Alexander, the Great. In this structure, the Mount Athos would present Alexander the Great, with left hand showing a wide city and a bowl at the right side to receive all rivers in that mountain, thus making an effort to show a city like a human body with rivers depicting veins of the body (Kemp & Da Vinci, 2006). From emotionless intellectual messages through artistry of ancient Greek times, art is said to have taken a different turn during Renaissance. Literature depicts that Leonardo’s work also included external techniques in order to give meaning to his creation. Leonardo asserted, ‘the forms of men must have attitudes appropriate to the activities that they engage in, so that when you see them you will understand what they think or say. This can be done by copying the motions of the dumb, who speak with movements of their hands and eyes and eyebrows and their while person, in their desire to express that which is in their minds. Do not laugh at me because I propose a teacher without speech to you, who is to teach you an art which he does not know himself, for he will teach you better through facts than will all the other masters through words’ (qtd by Mirzoeff, 1995; 22). Ideal body in the contemporary world of art While the sought-after ideal body in ancient times was discovered in art through paintings, sculptures, carvings, music, poetry and plays, the contemporary art entails much more than these including video, photography, multimedia, biological manipulations like cosmetic surgery, bio-engineering, etc. Conceptualization of art is said to have occurred during 1960-70s, whereas the period post 1970s is characterized by gallery-based practices, and post that art has invaded the cultural and economic life of humans. As Hammaren (2007) states, ‘in the contemporary society, physical appearance, outward presentation, the cosmetic and the sexy have been given increasingly prominent position, particularly in advertisements, TV, magazines and other visual media. The media gives ample opportunity for people to prove themselves by experimenting with identities and also try a complex combination of different types of identities, the hybridity. The postmodern art provides the youth with a platform to fulfill their dreams of attaining their kind of ideal body. This is completely different from the traditional art that focused on brining out reality to its maximum. Technological and social considerations in framing ideal body This transformation, though occurred with technological aid, the root cause is the human being’s need for socialising and being in the limelight. All of this can be achieved in the contemporary world with the help of right lifestyle, manifested through a particular style of dress, attitude and spatial positioning (Johannsson, 2007). The main considerations in the contemporary art are celebrity, replication, normativity and deviance in the representation of the body (Prettejohn; 2006). In reality, as Mirzoeff (1995) argues, the postmodern age is a transformational age in every sense including technology, relationships and even environment. In such a situation, the human body no long is itself. It is under the influence of pharmaceutical, aerobic, dietic, liposuctive, calorie-controlled, cybernetic world of postmodernism. With the awareness of incompleteness and changing nature of human body, various types of innovative efforts to maintain the body have received much criticism from artists of the postmodern times. However, Mirzoeff (1995; 3) states that ‘the body in art must be distinguished from the flesh and blood it seeks to imitate’ However, this is found to be untrue of the art of modern human body. Mirzoeff (1995) asserts that body has been the central locus and metaphor for understanding and exploring political change. To support this, Barbara Kruger’s powerful mixed photo, ‘Your body is a battleground’ (Mirzoeff 1995; 4) clearly depicts a struggling female figure; however, the truth is that this picture got stereotyped after being used for rallies on reproductive rights, prior to which it was unnoticed. However, the original essence of this picture was quite different. The contemporary notion of an ideal body is that which is desired due to its outward appearance. Today, human beings are being judged by their fellow humans based on the appearance. Hence, every one is struggling to look like someone else or something else, than their own natural self. This is being done either through temporary alterations such as decorating with ornaments, using cosmetics, fashion, etc or through permanent changes through aesthetic surgery in the form of cosmetic surgery or reconstructive surgery. These procedures are being sought for both repair of existing deformity or distortion from what is most popular and to enhance the existing appearance. These manipulations are made internally as well as externally to enhance the overall appearance. A classic example that can be quoted with reference to these manipulations in modern art is that of Hector Falcon of Mexico, who uses his own body as a medium to explore norms of physical beauty, by using steroids, aerobic exercise and a high-protein diet to attain the classic notion of an ideal body (Noble, Bao & Forsyth, 2004). Drawing comparisons between the ancient art of the ‘idealized nude’ and the contemporary nude art that is very much influenced by the feminism, psychoanalysis and deconstruction, the contemporary art in this arena is much different with a significant element of ambiguity and portray a different meaning to the artistic nudity. The nude art work and its interpretations have dramatically changed over the years, and have raised many questions related to decency and censorship. Distinctions have been made between the nude art of ancient times that represented the ‘ideal body’ and the art representing the naked body (McDonald, 2001). McDonald’s exploration revealed that the female nude in cultural art has vanished in the early postmodern period due to the feminist movements and governmental censorship. However, this aspect of art took a different shape in the early 1990s, in the form of Madonna’s explicit performances and in the art that explored sexuality. Racism and portrayal of sexuality in art have been closely associated. For instance, the early twentieth century experienced inclusions of Black women in many beauty contests and ventures, more as a result of politicizing impact to uplift the blacks in order to overturn the while beauty standards and to celebrate African physical features and culture. However, the consequences of this transformation did not conform to the originality of the Blacks’ features. Though the number of nonwhite women increased in promoting beauty ventures through magazines, television and media, their features such as hair, facial features and the body type was toned to look like that of the While women. Most of the models that participated in marketing strategies obeyed the rules of the white norms whilst having nonwhite skin (Cashmore, 2004). Thus, the contemporary art has experienced a lot of mix and match, beyond one can imagine. This has become the rule of contemporary art and culture. Cybernetic art The postmodern age is essentially a cyber age. Art, in every sense, is shadowed by cybernetic impact. As Balsamo (1999) argues that the image of body is inevitably composed of various technological personifications in order to achieve the sense of an ideal body. Through an analysis of a contemporary fiction by Pad Cadigan (1995), Synners, even the contemporary ideal body is not mere techno craft of physical cybernetic material, but beyond that which also includes cultural aspect. Thus, according to Balsamo, the postmodern body is a technological embodiment of culture in the form of ritual and mythic identities; technological embodiment attained through bio-engineering and cosmetic surgery. From the cultural perspective, the contemporary body is identified with the trend of fashion and physical transformation of the body through surgical methods. Conclusion In conclusion, we notice that the notion of an ideal body in contemporary art has adopted a different dimensions altogether, emphasizing outward appearance in an effort to match the features to the more dominant culture. While the traditional socialist affirmations represent the ideal body as the source of value and labour, the postmodern art depicts high self-absorption, sexual aggravation, gender confusion and confused motive. It can be said that the contemporary art is a bye-product of the ancient art. The ideal body as shown in contemporary art also attracts cultural and political identity, further increasing discrimination on the basis of gender, race and ethnicity, and also socioeconomic status to an extent. In my opinion, the huge difference in morale behind contemporary art and the ancient art, with respect to notion of an ideal body, is due to the constant transformation that has taken place. Upon a closer review, I strongly see a relation between Leonardo Da Vinci’s assertion necessitating the existence of visual emotions in art, and the contemporary notion of ideal body that is being achieved through technology, biological manipulations and other beauty regimes. My experience and knowledge of fashion and technology has only seen more and more sophistication and a constantly changing nature; the same way I feel changes in art of appearance of body also cannot be controlled. The cultures hosting these changes become the first ones to portray them in the form of art, and thus politicizing art becomes a part of the game, either for publicity or for representing a theme. References 1. Balsamo, A. (1999). Forms of Technological Embodiment: reading the body in contemporary culture. In Price, J and Shidlrick, M’s Feminist theory and the body: a reader. Published by Taylor and Francis. 2. Davis, L.J. (2006).The disability studies reader. Edition 2. published by CRC Press. 3. Cashmore, E. (2004).Encyclopedia of race and ethnic studies. Published by Taylor & Francis. 4. Hammaren, N. (2007). Gender Order or Disorder? In Johannsson, T’s (Ed.) The transformation of sexuality: gender and identity in contemporary youth culture. Ashgate Publishing, Ltd. 5. Kemp, M and Da Vinci, L. (2006). Leonardo Da Vinci: the marvelous works of nature and man. Issue 6923. Revised edition. Published by Oxford University Press 6. Kleiner, F.S. (2009). Gardners Art Through the Ages: the western perspective. Edition 13. Published by Cengage Learning. 7. McDonald, H. (2001). Erotic ambiguities: the female nude in art. Published by Routledge. 8. Mirzoeff, N. (1995).Bodyscape: art, modernity and the ideal figure. Published by Routledge. 9. Noble, J, Bao, S and Forsyth, S. (2004). Mexico. Edition 9. Published by Lonely Planet. 10. Prettenjohn, E. (2006). Reception and Ancient Art. In Martindale, C and Thomas, R.F’s (Eds.). Classics and the uses of reception. Published by Wiley-Blackwell. Read More