ARTH 451
Ideal Bodies: The Modern Nude and Its Dilemmas
Last Offered Fall 2006
Division I
Cross-listed WGST 451
This course is not offered in the current catalog

The nineteenth century is so dominated by the female nude that the very term “nude” has come to stand for the female body. And yet, the history of the nude during this period is not devoid of male bodies. This course looks at both male and female nudes in order to understand how the nude became gendered female. Required readings include Kenneth Clark’s classic study The Nude: A Study in Ideal Form (1956) and Lynda Nead’s The Female Nude: Art, Obscenity and Sexuality (1992), with special attention to texts which show how the nude and the discourse of the ideal function to obscure social issues. We will explore the ways in which certain types of bodies have been defined in opposition to the white western ideal, and thereby exoticized or marginalized. Our prime focus is the work of David, Ingres, Géricault, Courbet, Manet, and Renoir but more popular nineteenth-century images as well as selected works by artists working today will be discussed.