Exposed: The Victorian Nude
by Alison Smith
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Book Summary Information
Author: Alison SmithEdition: Hardcover
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2002-05-01
ISBN: 0823016331
Number of pages: 288
Publisher: Watson-Guptill
Book Reviews of Exposed: The Victorian Nude
Book Review: Beautiful and informative
Summary: 5 Stars
This is almost two books in one. The first book is just in the pictures, reproductions of paintings, photos, and even a few cartoons that celebrate the figure. The pictorial reading is hugely informative by itself. The authors place each picture in the historical or visual context that led up to it - showing related pictures that might have informed the one being discussed, or displaying cartoons that editorialize on the figure in then-contemporary art.
One thing that's hard for a modern viewer is to see the pictures through Victorian eyes, with Victorian sensibilities. Nudity often represented innocence, invoking Edenic times before modesty (and immodesty, by implication) arose. This seems true, most often, when depicting youths and children. A modern viewer is free to wonder, though - weren't a few artists, Charles Dodgson included, just a bit shrill in protesting their innocent motives?
The second reading of this book is in its explanatory text, an even partner with the imagery itself. This is what a picture book's text should be, but too rarely is. It really does add insight to the images. Sometimes the writing explains mythical references that are now obscure, sometimes it describes the artist and that artist's place in society, sometimes it explains how competing schools of thought created pictures with specific features of style. In every case, though, the reading is worthwhile, if only because it invites the reader to linger just a little longer over each of the pictures shown.
The artists represented here all honor classical human beauty in its many forms, male, female, and child. That explains one of two lacks I found in this book. First was the absence of mature figures, especially among the women. It was and often still is implicit that only the young can be beautiful. This error deprives fully adult women of their due, and deprives the viewer of a wider vision of human wonder. Second, this book emphasizes the classical, formal style of painting. I miss the other kinds of images that were also being made at the time, especially the Impressionist. The first lack I attribute to the artists of the time, but the second was introduced by the modern editors. It's a minor point, though, and does not interfere with the enjoyment of what is present.
This is a book worth having and keeping, for its inherent beauty, for its intelligent commentary, and for its presentation of painters I might not have known otherwise.
//wiredweird
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