The Last Judgment, by Michelangelo. Fragment.
The Human Body in All Its Value (Part 1)
IS THE NUDE IMMORAL IN ART?
On July 18, 1563, in Venice, Veronese appeared before the Tribunal of the Inquisition. He was reproached for certain figures or certain attitudes, judged to be immoral. As he defended himself by mentioning Michelangelo's Last Judgment, the head of the Inquisitors gave him this now famous reply: "Are you unaware that in the nudes painted by Michelangelo there is nothing that is not of a spiritual essence?"
How should we appreciate this reply?
One must understand both the extraordinary intelligence of this ecclesiastic and the era in which this debate took place.
In his Last Judgment, Michelangelo executed a group of three hundred and fourteen figures, dominated in the center by Jesus, the Virgin and the Apostles, surrounded by Angels and Saints. He had painted all the figures completely nude, with the agreement of Paul III, the patron of the work. At the inauguration, numerous protests arose, and the discussion lasted twenty-three years.
After the decrees of the Council of Trent, in 1563, nudity was banned from sacred subjects, and destroying the Last Judgment was even considered.
Paul IV charged Daniele da Volterra to paint draperies and it was necessary the exhortations of the Academy of Saint-Luc to prevent Clement VIII from destroying Michelangelo's work. And it is thanks to the prestige of this Last Judgment that the nude survived the Counter-Reform.
Was this Tribunal right? Was it correct in asserting that the nude in itself has nothing immoral about it? Time, controversies, and studies made since then give us an affirmative answer: In Art, the nude is not immoral... provided that it is truly artistic, that is to say, that the aesthetic character outweighs the sensual character.
Since you are a convinced drawing enthusiast, we assume that you possess sufficient artistic and aesthetic education to be able to approach the nude without prejudice.
SHADOW AND LIGHT ON THE HUMAN BODY
Light models the body, gives it core shadows and cast shadows. It can be natural or artificial, diffused or precise; it can strike the model from the front, from the side, etc.; the modeling, the handling, and the message of the work depend on the factors of quantity, quality, and direction of the light. The shadow can also be graduated and lead to a chiaroscuro effect just like the light and what we have called the hump of the shadow.
One must remember and apply these general principles when studying and drawing the effects of shadow and light on the human body. Indeed, the quantity, quality, and direction of the light influence the artist from the start, giving them a soft or harsh modeling, with a quality, values, and differences in tones in the shaded areas.
We can consider these general principles as assimilated. Let us therefore move on to the practical study of rendering shadows on the human body.
RENDERING SHADOWS BY MEANS OF PLANES OR BLOCKS
Imagine you have a model in front of you, for example the Venus de Milo; you have already solved the problem of framing and construction, and you are tackling that of modeling, of placing and rendering the effects of shadow and light. (Note that these two operations—linear framing and the placement of shadows—can and should be done simultaneously. We have separated them here to make the explanation easier.)
The Last Judgment, by Michelangelo, painted on one of the walls of the Sistine Chapel (Rome). It measures thirteen meters in width and seventeen in height.
The difficulty arises when translating onto the diagram the entire range of values and tones that the model offers. On the image, note for example the perfect gradient that softly models the cylindrical shape of the arm, the gradients of the torso, the abdomen, the hips, etc.; you see that these gradients occur without abrupt transitions, in a regular, harmonious, uniform way; and you understand well that it is impossible to draw perfectly on the first try the entire range of values that give shape to the modeling, especially since you must simultaneously take into account the relationship of tones between the different parts.
The only way to solve this difficulty is to see, or better, to know how to "see" where the gradients that model the form start and finish in principle. This implies the temporary elimination of transitions, that is to say, middle tints: you only concern yourself with clear areas of light and shadow, considering them in the form of planes, as if the body presented a series of facets.
Let's reason using the images: on figure no. 1 of this second part, you can see the application of what is said in the preceding paragraph. Figure A shows the model as it exists in reality; in image B, the model is presented in blocks, as you must imagine it, without gradients, the shadows being rendered by planes; image C shows the placement of shadows, as you made it from figure B; D presents us with a modeling progressively resolved starting from the previous placement, in a fairly advanced phase of value rendering.
But, you will say, what must I do to see on my model something that does not exist, to imagine these shadows translated into facets or planes, which will allow me to set up the modeling, to simplify it into blocks? It's very simple: determine by eye where light and shadow begin and end. In figure 2, you can see a gradient specially drawn to illustrate the case at hand. It shows a gradient of values, whose transitions are smooth. It is then not difficult to transform this series of gradations into clear planes; to mark at B the boundary between the lighter zone A and the next, darker zone C; to see at D the theoretical end of the preceding zone C, and the beginning of the following zone E, etc... This is all the less difficult since, by delimiting the values, our goal is not to obtain an exact, finished modeling, but an initial placement of the parts that are in shadow, that is to say, a sort of trial and error; it will allow us to grasp the form through its volume. There is, moreover, an old system, which makes it possible to better appreciate the location of these theoretical limits, where the transition from shadow to light occurs.
Do not forget this method; look at the model, squinting often to try to see and clearly grasp the areas of shadow and light.
THE OLD HALF-CLOSED EYES FORMULA
You know it: it's about squinting, closing your eyes halfway, nervously, with a slight contraction of the muscles that make the eyelids blink. Vision is altered and soft transitions, even middle tints, disappear; the opposition between shadow and light appears more clearly, and approaches what the rendering of shadows by planes yields.
Do not fail to do this; look at the model, squinting often, to try to see and clearly grasp the areas of shadow and light.
FROM THEORY TO PRACTICE...
Let's not imagine that making the model by means of Plans requires a geometric study, which would transform the body into a polyhedron. Theory is one thing, practice is another. In reality, this division, this synthesis of curved surfaces into blocks or Plans, exists more or less. We will see it and study it on images, from the model in Figure 3.
In this last figure, no. 5, you can see that in many places, there is no clear, geometric boundary separating the lighter areas from the darker ones, and vice versa. (Compare this drawing with that of figure 1 C.) Observe also on this figure 5 that in certain places, the pencil has drawn circular, loop-shaped strokes or gradients in an attempt to explain from the start the cylindrical or curved appearance of the form. Understand clearly that the formula of trying to render shadows by planes should not be taken literally. One must know how to apply its theoretical principle, that is to say, separating the soft and harmonious gradients presented by the model into more or less distinct surfaces.
