Imre Györgyi szerk.: A modell, Női akt a 19. századi magyar művészetben (A Magyar Nemzeti Galéria kiadványai 2004/2)

Tanulmányok / Studies - Kinses Károly: Egy kis akt-tipológia / A Sort of Nude Typology

A Sort of Nude Typology KÁROLY KINCSES [SUMMARY] It is an ongoing desire in man to get to know the human body, to record it and thus to partially possess it. It was with the help of photography that man first succeeded in turning the naked human body into a purely visually perceptible sight in a more or less objective way. Photography also allowed for the simultaneous examination of the body of the model, the ready work of art and the creative intention. This ensemble of viewpoints had before been non-existent in representations of nudes by other media of art, although at its onset inchoate photography borrowed not only its themes, but also its manners of representation (and even of presentation and examination) from the other genres of fine art that had come about far earlier. From the moment of photography's birth, nudes were photographed. The history of nude photography has to be written by spinning together three seemingly independent threads: artistic nudes, commercial nudity and pornography. Artistic photography realized that it, too, could show up the ideal, because nudity could convey human implications that were just as profound and eternal when it was real as when it was contrived. It was this insight that underlay pictures that were very different from their forerunners in painting and sculpture. A fundamental question is how to define the nude. What is the difference between "artistic", "commercial" and "pornographic" nude photographs? Three concepts have to be differentiated: the artistic nude photograph discovers some aesthetic category: the beautiful, the moving or the shocking (the ugly or peccable) in or through the body in a way that combines the approach of fine arts with the special language of photography. It uses its model to mediate an aesthetic, philosophical, emotional, or other message to the spectator. It is therefore immaterial whether the photograph also conveys sensual delight in addition to intellectual or aesthetic experience. The makers of commercial photographs are guided by radically different intentions. Their targets are the human senses, the overt or suppressed desires: by providing sensual pleasure, they want to persuade the spectators to accept the commodity or lifestyle advertised through the woman. This is service or commercial nudity, and it contrasts sharply with artistic nudity. The artistic nude may become boring or commonplace if it does not affect our senses; conversely, nudes "for consumption" often draw on the arsenal of artistic nudes partly for the sake of civilised appearance and partly for the sake of legality. Pornography is in opposition to both categories; it is clearly aimed at arousing, maintaining and satisfying people's sexual desire. It is not the photographer who designs the postures shown by pornography; he or she merely perpetuates them and provides another public setting for them. The three forms of nude photography have always coexisted side by side everywhere. It was changing attitudes in different ages that determined what could be publicised, as well as where, when and how, along with what was admissible and what had to be kept secret, hidden or punishable. These attitudes depended on a number of factors, such as the degree of tolerance, equanimity and cultural traditions. Nude photography has never been the internal affair of a branch of art in the strict sense. Opinions about it "public taste" and the behaviour of the authorities acting in its name - have always been dependent on the political and cultural context. The following chronological and thematic typology aims to encompass the whole history of nude photography in time and space. It may serve as the starting point for more detailed research. An attempt to systematise nude photos 1. Nude daguerreotypes, also coloured and stereo variants, 1839-C.1863 2. Photographs to substitute for live models for use in fine arts, c.

1850-1930 3. Early piquant, erotic photographs, approximately 1850-1900 4. Ethnographic photographs of colonial natives, approximately 1860-1941 5. Artistic nude photographs of pictorial quality, from 1900 to the present day 6. Saucy picture postcards, approximately 1890-1935 7. Nudes of the free body culture, of the art of dancing, 1920-1944 8. Nude photographs of new objectivity and the new approach, 1920-1944 9. Banning of all sorts of nudes, permission for nudity devoid of eroticism: 1948 to the early 1960s 10. Model and nude photographs for advertisements and commerce, ra service nudes in adverts, so-called nude design, c.1936 ° to the present day o 11. Pin-up photographs, 1970s-1990s J 12. Photographs of action art and happenings, avant-garde nudes H from the early 1 970s o> 13. Nude photographs by amateurs from 1930 to the present day 14. Pornography from 1839 to the present day z 15. Nudes, eroticism and pornography in private photographs ^ from 1900 to the present day. o o The history of this special field of photography can be < surveyed with the help of these categories. There are overlaps with regard to times and themes. Let us now review nude photography in Hungary in the 19th century.