Standing on Your Own Two Feet
contrapposto |ˌkōntrəˈpästō|
noun ( pl. -trapposti |-trəˈpästē|) Sculpture
an asymmetrical arrangement of the human figure in which the line of the arms and shoulders contrasts with while balancing those of the hips and legs.
contrapposto (kōn’trə-pōs’tō) n.
The position of a figure in painting or sculpture in which the hips and legs are turned in a different direction from that of the shoulders and head; the twisting of a figure on its own vertical axis.
Those definitions are from the New Oxford American Dictionary and Answers.com, respectively. (Wikipedia had a good entry too but I got tired of copying and pasting). Now if an art model was writing the definition it’s likely that a generic and uninspired explanation would be offered: “standing pose”. BO-RING! Yes, of course it’s a standing pose, but it’s much more than that. It’s the human body in a natural stance, displaying shifting weight with muscles tensed on one side and relaxed on the other. It shows that we have movement in our bodies at all times. The word, in Italian, means “counterpoise”.
How often do you find yourself standing with your hips and shoulders perfectly squared? Hardly ever. Only soldiers standing at attention do that when their drill sergeant is yelling in their faces. But for the rest of us, waiting on line at the post office, standing in a subway car, etc, it’s the natural action of the human body – and the muscles within – to shift weight. And voila! You’re doing contrapposto. (See, it’s not just for art models!) Now a really great contrapposto has a dynamic twist in the torso – the body turning on its vertical axis, as the definition says.
*Just a note- contrapposto doesn’t have to mean standing. But in art modeling circles it usually does. So for the purpose of this post, we’ll consider it standing.
I have done many, many contrappostos, and I have learned to appreciate them. I’ve seen right before my eyes what an invaluable learning tool it is for artists. I’ve seen them measure and measure and measure my proportions – until they get them right. I won’t lie. Contrappostos can be very strenuous if held for a four hour session. Hell, models have done standing poses for two or three week painting classes. Sculpture can go on for months! I kid you not. And when you start to feel that insidious, dull pain in your hip flexor or, if the twist is deep, your oblique muscle, one is tempted to beg the class for mercy!
My friend, the artist Dan Gheno, asks me to do contrappostos and I am more than happy to oblige. It’s largely through Dan’s classes that I’ve developed a deep understanding of the value of standing poses. Nothing makes for a better figure study than a great contrapposto. Nothing illustrates basic human anatomy better than a great contrapposto. I believe, honestly, that it is well worth doing a standing pose for it’s classic presentation, statuesque appearance, and it’s powerful – yet graceful – depiction of the human body.
What better way to epitomize this than with the most famous contrapposto of all time. Here it is to perfection, in Michelangelo’s David:
One more for the road. This is an exquisite drawing by Raphael, in which he copied Da Vinci’s famous painting of “Leda” from Greek mythology. I was going to post Leonardo’s but I love this piece, done in brown ink, 16th century. Another lovely contrapposto. Look at the shoulders in relation to the hips. Beautiful.
Sunday Boredom
See, this is what happens when consumers buy products equipped with pointless and gratuitous features like Apple’s Photo Booth. Is there a bigger time-waster than this thing? I was hoping to use this Sunday to accomplish the chores I’ve been procrastinating for weeks, and instead I’m engaged in this foolishness:
And this:
Ok, how old am I? Thought I was a grown woman.
The thermal camera special effect is just charming, isn’t it?
Help! I can’t stop.
Guys, I’m sorry. I brewed a kick-ass pot of coffee this morning and now I’m so hopped up on caffeine I can’t focus on laundry or closet sorting or anything of that nature. I’m just so comfy in my sweatshirt, hanging out in my living room, and totally digging my new computer that I’ve reduced my blog to mindless postings. If it’s any consolation, I do have John Coltrane’s A Love Supreme playing in the background. I should get some cred for that.
My profound apologies for this childish display. Can’t believe I’m actually going to press the “publish” button. I’m such an idiot. But it’s not me, it’s the stupid Photo Booth! Get this thing away from me!
Dance With Me
Last Saturday I had the opportunity to pose for a children’s art class, which is always a fun, jaunty time. And as all art models know, this is not a nude booking obviously! And that’s fine. It gives us the opportunity to don a fun costume, wear a crazy hat, poncho, or feather boa, or just pose in our street clothes. The kids are cool with anything.
So I was scooting around the National Academy in my ballet outfit- really just a leotard, pink tutu, tights, slippers, and legwarmers, and hair up in a ponytail. Just before class started, as I rushed down the hall toward the bathroom, I was stopped by some of the adult women at the Academy, who were quite charmed at the sight of me in ballet gear. “Claudia! You look lovely! What a pretty outfit!”. It was very sweet. Also, the sight was such a departure for those ladies who, after painting and drawing me many times over the past three years, have become so used to seeing me in the nude they could probably do me from memory at this point!
Anyway, it made me think about how inspiring the image of a dancer can be for those who are artistically inclined, and how much it delights the imagination. It must be something about the colors and fabrics of ballet clothing, combined with the movement, elegance, femininity, the expressive gestures, and the overall ambiance of a dance studio filled with ballerinas at practice. Classic and timeless.
Nobody did dancers better than Degas. And if you dare to disagree with that statement you’d better take it up with my mother, because she is an enormous admirer of Degas. She indoctrinated me at an early age to see his artistic gifts and recognize his sensibility. And it worked. I like Degas a lot, especially his dancer pieces.
This is one of my favorites, Dancers in Blue. Not only is it beautiful, but it demonstrates what a master of composition this guy was. And what an eye for perspective. You know what my eye is like? I can draw that dimensional cube we all doodled in the 4th grade, remember that? Well, that’s where my talents begin and end; the 3D cube in my elementary school notebook. Pure genius!
But Degas could depict several people within a space – dancers, instructors, piano accompanists, etc – and the picture never looks cluttered or chaotic. If anything, the space is always perfectly assigned. Organization and harmony – a couple of things I could use more of in my life!
Frida
Frida Kahlo. I love her. Many women love her, as do many men. But women like myself who admire Frida feel a form of admiration for her that is almost envious in nature. Yes, envious. Many of us, especially those who might visit an art model’s blog from time to time (doubt many stockbrokers or real estate agents drop by this blog very often) place high value on individualism, powerful personalities, and free thinking. These qualities foment creativity and vision. The art world, both past and present, is rife with such unique figures.
But when that figure is a woman, one as brave, passionate and liberated as Frida Kahlo, the fascination is amplified significantly. In the dark recesses of every woman’s mind – the coffee shop waitress, the schoolteacher, the suburban soccer mom, the lawyer, the nurse, the attorney, the boutique shopgirl- is that little place that fantasizes about an unconventional, defiantly nonconformist life. It’s that part of every woman that would love to be, if even for one day, Frida Kahlo. Yes, even with all her physical and emotional pain. We all have that irreverent, unshackled lioness inside us. We admire and envy Frida for throwing off those shackles, joyously and unapologetically. She had the internal “wiring” to let it loose. Too many women do not, and this is often an issue for a lot of us.
Why do I love Frida? Because she was rebellious and ferocious, witty and smart, misbehaved and lusty, insatiable and artistic, and amorous toward everything, whether it be her romances, her politics, or her native Mexico. As I improve on this blog, I thought there was no better way to embed (or try to embed) my very first video than to honor Frida Kahlo. She is absolutely mesmerizing and adorable in this footage. She makes her appearance on this blog not just because she was a Museworthy artist, but because she led a truly museworthy life. Frida will be back on these pages, you can be sure of that.
Apple Joy, Art Ecstasy
Readers . . . I’m back! And I missed you all so much. What a week it’s been. I thought I was merely taking a quick hiatus to tweak the blog and plan out my new ideas. But in the midst of all that, my computer went kaput ( a moment of silence, please, for my dear departed old Mac. It served me well for a long time).
So on Monday morning, after sitting for standby at SVA, I walked into the Apple Store in SoHo, and and let out a sigh of relief. The black T-shirted Mac geeks were there to greet me, and I thought, “Save me, boys! Save me, my darlings!”. And they did, my fellow cult members. So for those of you who care, I am now equipped with the brand new MacBook and, more importantly, the smooth, gorgeous, brilliant Leopard 10.5. Wow, what an operating system. I’m a little obssessed. My head is spinning with wild dreams and possibilities! It’s pretty fun.
On top of all this, I am also hooked up to what is apparently a very new high speed connection known as FIOS, courtesy of Verizon. Something to do with fiber optics, which basically means I have no understanding of how it works. But I can tell you categorically that it is fast!!
Even though I’m still setting up and organizing, I wanted to say hello and post for my regular readers. And I’ll offer you a little something more than just my “I got a new computer!” boasting: a reminder of what Museworthy is all about. Here, without backstory or commentary (for a change) is the perfect work of art to reflect my current mood, my hip new upgrades, and the overall pizzazz and excitement of my new start. And best of all, it’s a work by one of my very favorite artists. You all know it well. This is Jazz by Matisse:
Blog Improvements
Hellooooooooo, friends! Hope you all had a good week. It occurred to me the other day that Museworthy is officially six months old. Yay!! :confetti comes streaming down, brass band plays: To commemorate this mini-milestone I want to tweak and upgrade some blog features. I’ve begun the process, but WordPress tech support and instrcutions are confusing the hell out of me. Plus, my visual editing function has been a problem since the beginning. Appears then disappears. Really annoying. Have to get that on track too so Museworthy can be its very best.
I’d like to bring del.icio.us and Digg into the mix to make it easier for visitors to bookmark and share any Museworthy posts that tickle their fancy (or the entire blog). I have registered my bookmarks with del.icio.us but am having trouble getting the del.icio.us widget into my sidebar. It’s just not showing up and I have no idea why. In the meantime, for anyone who’s interested, del.icio.us is currently residing in my blogroll, where you can find many more art-related posts among my other interests, such as music, animals, news, politics, photography, culture, and some of my favorite charities.
I hope we can all make connections, share bookmarks, offer comments, and create networks. I welcome all of that. Isn’t that what all this blogging stuff is all about? I think so.
Assuming I can make sense of WordPress’ advice, these additions (and a few others) should be in place soon. Until then, check in for more posts about art, inspiration, and my daily adventures. Lots more to come!
Will the Real Jane Morris Please Stand Up?
I have had my portrait painted many, many times and I have yet to tire of that experience because it is intimate, involved, penetrating, academic, flattering, revealing, and a host of other things. At the heart of all this is my still-incredulous awareness that artists are attempting to capture me – ME. Claudia, a girl from Queens, of Armenian background. Daughter of a musician father and artist mother. College graduate with a degree in American History. Divorced. Former teacher. Warm, funny, sometimes sarcastic, always genuine. Olive-skinned, big brown eyes, thick long hair. Passionate about art modeling, and many other things as well. I’m writing all this to make a point. Even though an art model is posing for a painting or drawing, she is still her own individual. She still has irregular features like everyone does, she still has good days and bad, she still lives among the world, she still has her own ideas, quirks, and proclivities. In other words, she has things to bring to the posing session, and no matter how much quiet and concentration falls over the studio, she is THERE. All of her.
Maybe because Realism is all the rage right now in many art schools (the New York Studio School being an exception), I am somewhat bewildered by the Pre-Raphaelites. They chose fantastic muses to be sure. Some of the very best. (I wrote a post on Elizabeth Siddal a few weeks ago). But through their art, they transformed these fascinating real women into fictionalized, “unreal” roles; Roman goddesses, female figures of Arthurian legend, Shakespearean heroines, etc. I didn’t consider any of this an issue until I started researching the Pre-Raphaelite women, viewing some photographs, and relating my own art modeling experience. And I concluded that these models were woefully shortchanged, their enigmatic souls and all-too-human qualities sanitized into storybook makebelieve.
Jane Morris was born Jane Burden in 1839 in Oxford, England. She was the poor, uneducated daughter of a stableman father and domestic mother. Discovered by Dante Gabriel Rossetti, who was looking for a model to pose as Guinivere, Jane began modeling for him and his cohorts. William Morris, founder of the Arts and Crafts Movement, fell in love with her, and Jane embarked on her own informal education to become more worldly and refined, in hopes she would fit in with the sophisticated crowd. She read, she studied music, she learned to speak other languages. She became a skilled embroiderer. It is believed that Jane Morris was the inspiration for the Eliza Doolittle character in George Bernard Shaw’s “Pygmalion”.
Rossetti and Jane took up a torrid affair, and it seems that although Jane was deeply in love with Rossetti, he was unavailable to her in the long run due to his own relationship with Elizabeth Siddal. So Jane went ahead and married William Morris and dutifully bore him two children. It was a practical, sensible life choice not uncommon for Victorian women and consistent with the values of the age.
But here is my gripe. Perhaps I am making too much of this, but then again I am an artist’s model and I take this stuff personally! This is Jane as “Prosperine”, painted by Rossetti and probably the most famous image of her:
Beautiful? Of course. Romantic? Most definitely. A riveting portrait of a conscientious woman with desires, interests, ambitions, and longings? Not exactly.
It’s those Pre-Raphaelites and their pretend world, apparently regarding the real world and it’s human inhabitants as insufficient, deficient in beauty, and material not worthy of their art. To them, the illusory, fictitious land is more appealing, and the real world is lacking in inspiration. Here at Museworthy, we reject that entire premise.
Let me just make a quick distinction here; painting or drawing something in an unrealistic style that is still derived from and inspired by the real sitter is not the same, in my opinion. I have seen many portraits of myself where the artist took license and steered clear of a photographic likeness. In fact, I have written about that here on Museworthy with complete approval. But taking a model and inserting her into a fictionalized identity, and stripping her entirely of her own character and her life scars, purging her of her personality, and quieting her active, thirsty mind, is another thing altogether. It’s like pulling a Madison Avenue airbrush job. It chlorinates an originally mesmerizing subject into something that bears little resemblance to that original.
Perhaps this next image will illustrate my point far better than my words. This a photograph of Jane Morris, taken sometime around 1865. What an unusual looking woman; somber, serious, contemplative, preoccupied with thoughts, curiosities, sadness and who knows what else. Politics could very well have been on her mind, as Jane became an avid supporter of Irish Home Rule and the legislation that would have granted Ireland self-government and autonomy from British control. Ladies and gentlemen, THIS is Jane Morris:
Art, Articles, and Models Galore
This is a powerhouse month on the newsstands – in the art section that is. Let’s call it a bonanza, shall we? (I really just wanted to use the word “bonanza”). This afternoon I was wasting time before my FIT job browsing the magazines in the Borders bookstore on 7th Avenue. I got a nasty paper cut leafing through a stupid InTouch Weekly or Us Magazine or Life & Style . . .one of those tabloid rags, can’t remember which one. Serves me right for reading that trash. Bad Claudia! (Is it sooo terrible that I feel even an ounce of genuine concern for the plight of Britney Spears? I’m worried about that girl!).
Anyway, undaunted by my life-threatening injury I pursued more magazines, and headed into the Art section for more quality nourishment. And what a terrific surprise awaited me! I became positively giddy at the sight of familiar artwork by artists I know – friends and instructors I work with – gracing the covers of two major magazines. It was exciting! And I did a little dance in the aisle ::cha cha cha::
My dear friend Sam Goodsell is featured in this month’s “American Artist”, with his prize-winning painting “Threshold” right on the cover. The article is excellent and there are many images of Sam’s work in the pages; all pastels, all done over the years from some of the best models at the Art Students League. I especially like Sam’s painting of Suli, a model I know, and his beautiful depiction of the wonderful Leticia and Esteban in a warm, gentle embrace. They are two talented, charismatic individuals who have inspired many, many artists throughout the New York schools. They are well-regarded, and deservedly so.
Then, I instantly recognized the unmistakable work of Sharon Sprung on the cover of “The Artist’s Magazine”. Again, a fascinating and very informative article with stunning images.
It was especially interesting for me to read because in it Sharon discusses both her approach to working with models (so integral to her art) and how she conducts her classes, for which I have posed several times and am quite familiar with. In fact, I am booked to pose for her National Academy class in just three weeks time, to begin the fourth quarter. I really look forward to it, and I’m already anticipating what they have in store for me. From the gratifying, supportive experience of working with Sharon, to the shared excitement of watching the students’ canvases evolve over the two weeks, it’s a booking I treat as one of the highlights of my modeling schedule. Terrific, first-rate class, always.
Also in the same magazine, is an article on Nicki Orbach, yet another art instructor I’ve had the pleasure of working with many times. I’m currently posing for her Saturday morning painting class. Nicky is truly beloved by her students, and her enthusiasm and positive, cheerful energy is contagious. She encourages experimentation and boundless creativity. Whenever I’m posing for her class and listen to her comments and suggestions, I’m almost inspired to pursue art myself! Nicky awakens that confidence in people.
Both of these magazines are the April 2008 issues, so they should be on the newsstands for a few weeks. I’ve got mine. Check them out, and get inspired. Ciao, friends!
