PAINTING NUDES

NUDES - A LITTLE BIT OF SELF INDULGENCE

Please forgive the following homespun philosophical musing on painting and drawing nudes. (So, if you don't like reading about or seeing nude paintings, please go to another listing).
Along with portraits, they are my favorite subjects.
But not that easy to achieve. There are lots of practical problems for the artist.
You can imagine the local's response to an elderly (some would say "old") Anglo Saxon male trying to mount an exhibition of nude paintings here in Mezin, an isolated medieval village in La France Profonde. Whether I tried to exhibit male, female (or like the coiffures signs that advertise "mixed") nudes, there is every possibility of finding myself shunned - even ostracized - by the wonderfully warm, welcoming, but very conservative villagers.
(Just bye the way, these attitudes are by no means restricted to country people. When I was living in Melbourne, there was a huge outcry when the National Gallery of Victoria wanted to show some of Robert Mapplethorpe's internationally renowned nude photographs. And when I was working at Myer, the huge Australian department store group, a Biblical David hid behind his proverbial fig leaf when, in a small version of Michelangelo's famous sculpture, he found himself being stared at by shoppers when exhibited in one of the Bourke Street store's windows.)
Without wanting to make a meal of this subject, there is also the problem of finding a model. Lynne has posed for me ever since we first met - clothes on and clothes off - but now refuses to do so for so many reasons. But I don’t have the time or space to list them all here. The point is, if I risked casting a wider net and tried to find a male or female who was willing to pose for me in the nude, I believe the brouhaha it would cause amongst the locals could get me drummed out of town definitivement.
So, with not many options, but using my imagination, I produced this (rather androgynous looking) female nude.
If anyone cares to comment (or you would like to see more nudes I’ve painted) send emails to:
ray@johnstonesinfrance.com
Then click on "Contact Us".
The same applies if you would like more information on the "learn to paint and draw" holidays we run in sunny southwest France.