The Body in Art

Introduction

Introduction

From the early 1840’s, images of the human figure formed an important genre of photography. As in art, these kinds of images are produced for a variety of reasons such as to advertise beauty, as pornography or to explore features and curiosity of the figure. It can be investigated in many ways and forms.
The main concept of the figure abstracted is the way in which photographers compose their images, whether it is the body as a whole, fragments or even the figure abstracted in a non-conventional way. Imagery of the human body can be the most powerful, richest and most diverse domains of photography because it shows us what’s really their and the true form as you will see throughout the dissertation. It is also said that nude photography is more overwhelming then paintings of the nude because the viewer knows it is fact and that it did happen.
Throughout this dissertation the theme figure abstracted will be explored, examined and discussed. Most importantly the way it is photographed, cropped and the subjects used will be looked at. The dissertation will be split into 3 chapter headings which will all be linked to the figure abstracted. Each chapter will introduce various works by photographers, and the context of such work will be discussed. The three chapters will be entitled, ‘body structure’, ‘the figure as fragments’ and ‘distortion of the figure’.
The body structure chapter will mainly focus on how the body is photographed in general. For example the lighting, the way the subject matter is situated and the identity. The figure as fragments will explore ways the body can be fragmented and how the photographers communicate this. This chapter will explore the different kinds of fragments of the figure that are photographed, the subject matter and the composition. The final chapter will look at distortion and the way photographers use props and cropping as well as manipulation. Throughout these chapters works will be compared...