‘Cézanne rushed foward: ‘You wretch! You have upset the pose! You should sit like an apple. Whoever saw an apple fidgeting?’ Motionless as that fruit may be, Cézanne was sometimes obliged to leave a study of apples unfinished. They had rotted.’ Ambroise Vollard, 1936, on posing for Paul Cézanne.
‘I don’t use professional models because they have been stared at so much that they have grown another skin. When they take their clothes off, they are not naked; their skin has become another form of clothing.’ Lucien Freud
‘When I’ve painted a woman’s bottom so that I want to touch it, then [the painting] is finished.’ Pierre Auguste Renoir (1841-1919).
Art, like society, is fluid – affected, and often determined by the fashion, politics and religion of the day. Advances in technology and science continually open up artistic alternatives and in recent years the rise and rise of conceptual art has seemed unstoppable, while more traditional skills have been in decline. The requirement to study life drawing has become sadly devalued both in art education and within some of the artistic community. It is therefore timely that this year’s summer exhibition at the Royal Academy of Art, under the stewardship of David Hockney and Allen Jones, has refocused our attention on drawing.
This choice of a ‘theme’ is designed to explore the link between drawing and any creative process. There are contributions from sculptors, painters and even artists better known for their rotting sharks, or unmade beds. However, crucially and unusually, the exhibition also includes drawings from non-artists, ‘specialists from the fields of science, music, film, dance and sport to provide examples illustrating how they use drawings to communicate their thoughts and ideas’. In a time when the discipline of drawing has fallen out of favour and off most school curricular, the recognition of drawing as a useful and multi-faceted tool is to be welcomed. In an article published in May by the Guardian Hockney and Jones make it clear that they believe ‘drawing is not only a fine art, it is also a fundamental form of human communication’. This comment sums up the significance of drawing. It can communicate what language can’t explain, either practically or emotionally. This is particularly highlighted in life drawing where the complex act of looking at someone properly, and being seen, becomes an intimate collaboration between artist and model.
The use of models by artists is a time-honoured tradition and whilst male models are important; it is the relationship between the male artist and the female model or muse, which is seeped in bohemian glamour, romance and a hint of scandal. Throughout history this dynamic has fascinated people, sometimes more so than the actual art. Just look at the plots in 19th Century French romances, or more recently British Vogue who once dedicated 8 pages to ‘Lucien Freud’s Women’, or Surviving Picasso’s emphasis on Picasso’s women. Often, whether the artist has used wives, lovers or professional models – the art and the women become interwoven, each woman embodying an ‘era’ of an artists working life – a particular theme, palette or time. Interestingly, this does not necessarily mean the model is idealised by the artist. One critic during Rembrandt’s time commented, ‘he chose no Greek Venus as his model….flabby breasts, distorted hands, yes even the marks of corset-lacing on the stomach…’ The model in question was his wife. Whether the attraction between artist and model is physical, or something less tangible, many feel it is impossible to paint magnificently unless you are passionately connected. David Hockney famously jeopardised his degree by refusing to do a life drawing of models hired by the Royal College. He argued that the greatness of Renoir and Michelangelo was because they drew subjects they were attracted to. He got his degree.
Maybe if more women artists had been recognised throughout history there would be something similar flowing in the other direction. This was prevented because, until relatively recently, women artists were not allowed to look upon nude models. It is a strange, but typical, prudery that is showing a worrying echo in today’s politically correct climate. In some American educational systems art teachers are not even allowed to show pupils pictures of painted nudes. Bravo to the Royal Academy who run an Outreach Program, which teaches drawing by taking live models into schools in the UK. They say, ‘In the multicoloured digital age, drawing with pencil, chalk or ink is easily neglected. Artists, architects, scientists, designers and teachers recognise that the most original ideas are often generated through the direct action of the hand, from thumbnail sketches to final visions.’ However, without models willing to contribute, the world of art would be an unimaginably poorer place.
The decision to model has many and various motivations, and its own ego – for fame, love, friendship, or quite simply as a job. Marie Lathers, the author of, Bodies of Art: French Literary Realism and the Artist’s Model (University of Nebraska Press) makes the point that, ‘The increase especially in the 1830s and ’40s of the number of bohemian artists allowed working-class women to find higher-paid work as artists’ models, rather than as seamstresses or factory labourers.’ Lathers comments that the type of models evolved. Similar to fashion photography today, there were clear trends, often reflecting the social and political mores of the day. However now, like then, it’s not an easy option. Vic Stevens of the Register of Artists’ Models (RAM) warns, ‘It’s hard physical work… You’re not going to be asked to just lie on a mattress and fall asleep.’ As a model you are required to hold difficult poses for long stretches. It is an often lonely and vulnerable job in which you can expect to earn pitifully. But as art graduate and model, Tom Doran, told The Observer, ‘you’re there to help them get a drawing done. I’m part of that creative process.’ This collaboration is something which Nina Kane, a professional life-model and founder of Women Into Life-Modelling Arts (WILMA) feels passionately about, and uses theatre to explore. She says, ‘I believe in working with theatre in this area helps develop constructive working relationships between models and artists, and posit as a central “ethos” of my work that the life-modelling/life-drawing activity is one of active creative exchange between artist and model at all levels.’
So, what is the nature of the artist/model relationship? Complicated, necessary, generous and messy; and that is barely skimming the surface. The reasons why particular people work well together rarely fit into measurable parameters, but when there are sparks, magic can be made. You can see the evidence hanging from every gallery in the world.
Q&A WITH NINA KANE, PROFESSIONAL LIFE MODEL
Nina Kane has modelled professionally for 10 years and began to devise research work in 2000 with a specific interest in women and theatre development. WILMA – Women Into Life-Modelling Arts (is a free network and advocacy for female life-models to explore life-modelling as a profession). It is not an agency. She has been kind enough to share some of her thoughts on modelling from a female perspective. It is a fascinating insight into a complex subject.
What place is there for live models in today’s world?
There will always be a place for live models in the world. Life-modelling and drawing is all the more political in a world dominated by electronic manipulation and spectacle of the human image and photographic surveillance of human beings as a means of control. The politics and practices of the life-drawing space are an important site of exploration for artistic (and community) growth and the creative exchange between model and artist is vital. The option to be ‘non-spectated’, non-captured/exposed visually is an equally strong position and the life-modelling arena is a powerful place to explore the freedom of the body to exist in its own right, and to mark a personal response through basic materials to a time-duartional experience of being with another human.
How do you see the tradition of women life models?
Complex, contradictory. I would say that the history of the female life-model encompasses many positions from high priestess to scaffold victim, encompassing mentor, performer, artist, lover, prostitute, agitator, queen/aristocrat (‘sitter’), mother, pupil, dancer, athlete, guru, psychologist, living cadaver to name but a few ‘states of being’ experienced by the average female life-model historically and contemporaneously-speaking. My feeling is that female life-models channel (sometimes willingly, sometimes unwillingly) the activities of women engaged formally in these ‘roles’ historically and need to be alert to, embrace, recognise and make choices about the legacy of these histories in relation to their own practice. I would say that the tradition is one of transience, flexibility, high visibility and disappearance. It shifts.
What are the differences in perception about female/male models, if any?
I would argue that female life-models have their bodies commented upon subjectively both positively and negatively by life-drawers to a greater degree than male models within the course of the work. I think female life-models are accorded a higher ‘arts’ status’ but a lower ‘professional’ status than male models. I think that the female ‘nude’ is regarded as having a higher status artistically in our current climate, but that male models have more autonomy over what happens in the life-drawing class and are conditioned through their social status outside the life-drawing class to intervene more positively on their own needs than female models. I would say that there are proportionately more female models working for economic reasons in life-modelling, but that male and female models suffer equally from the disadvantages of the job in terms of low-pay, isolation and sub-standard environmental conditions.
Do you see modelling as a feminist issue? Much is written about the passive role of the model?
Feminism in the 70s/80s was a vital intervention in life-modelling in pulling artists up short on the mistreatment of models, and in providing women with a framework within which to reflect on their artistic relationship to their bodies and the bodies of other women, but there remain to be questions asked about the continued engagement of women from a range of social/cultural groups and classes in those debates/experiments.
Unfortunately an inevitable (though necessary) break from all life-drawing in some areas has meant that it has disappeared from many curriculums and skills have been lost in the wake of that intervention, though not exclusively because of it (the rise of video, digital art was a concurrent development that effected a separation from traditional practices, though feminist art practice in relation to these forms is of note).
Life-modelling and drawing is now re-emerging and I believe it is necessary for feminist art practitioners to actively engage and support the re-emergence of life-modelling and life-drawing to ensure that inadequacies in the conventions do not recreate the oppressive conditions/attitudes of before. Part of this involves practical arts intervention to ensure that the work-based experience of models and artists is understood fully when arguments and theories are being shaped/debated and a recognition of life-modelling as both an art form and a profession (and different practitioners will work with it with different focuses, needs and experiences which need to be given equal weight when discussing needs).
A wider understanding of the connections/differences of modelling and life-drawing in relation to non-western art practices also needs exploring.
How do you view the future life models in the face of modern new media art, installation art etc.
Drama is a key art form which will help models progress and develop in these new areas. There will always be life-models and life-drawing artists as long as people have the ability to find an object with which to make a mark, and as long as human beings have the inclination to connect to each other in a space where they breathe the same air.
Where is its place in the 21st century? Just educational or greater than this?
Educational and ritual. Life-modelling and drawing is central to the development of the C21st but it needs to lose its white western baggage and open itself up to challenges and difference.
What is the relationship between artist and model?
At its best, it is one of active, instinctive and equal creative exchange, at its worst it’s a relationship of the gallows-attendee and the ‘soon-to-be-hanged’ prisoner.
Is there still evidence of the ‘model as muse’ in action today?
Yes. But when it is present it is not passive or controlled. It happens when human
beings connect openly and generously to each other communicating whatever emotion is present and recognising a shared participation of creative activity.
For further information you can contact julesnina@ntlworld.com from Women Into Life-Modelling Arts (WILMA), or UK Register of Artists’ Models (RAM) www,modelreg.com or www.royalacademy.org.uk.
