"Men look at women and women watch themselves being looked at"

This is one of the most famous quotes from John Berger's 'Ways of Seeing', now nearly 40 years old, and sums up a universal truth, not just in the painting of the nude, but in everyday interactions between men and women.

His take on the nude is that all post renaissance pictures of naked women represent an act of possession. The (white male) owner displays his painting to his friends and acquaintances as a surrogate for the real thing, a bit of sublimated penis waving. This is certainly true for many pictures, particularly in the 19th century, when the new industrial class felt they had something to prove and wanted titillation combined with respectability, which they could get by calling it 'art'. 

The Alma Tadema Tepidatrium is a classic case - a soap-powder magnate collects lots of erotic pictures of droopy girls and builds a gallery for them - which he names after his wife! The Lady Lever Art Gallery; glorious Victorian hypocrisy. Don't get me wrong, I think it is a fantastic painting, sensual, beautiful, and Alma Tadema knows just what the score is - look at the post orgasmic symbolism of that scraper! Also, if you love the Pre-Raphaelites, I would seriously recommend the gallery; it really is full of some wonderful 19th century paintings.

This tradition of surrogate possession of the female nude  is also very much a tradition that continues to day. Notice how this type of image can still never avoid hypocrisy - they always have just that little hint of coyness, in this case in the placing of the faux body paint, echoing Alma Tadema's feather.

But actually, I think Berger is being too simplistic in seeing all post renaissance nudes in this way. I suspect that the image of the female nude reflects the place of women more generally in society during the period when the picture was painted. I am not sure that the women in Boucher's soft porn paintings from the mid 18th century carry quite the same atmosphere of ownership (if anything these girls look more likely to have been rented). These are images from an earlier more socially although not politically liberal age where a lot of the 19th century inhibitions do not apply and here the viewer is much more hopeful voyeur rather than owner and controller.

However, Berger definitely has something. A woman's view of her body and how she looks is almost always very different from that of a man. And men do look at women. Much of this has more to do with hormones on both sides rather than any concept of a person as property. However, there is also an undercurrent of power and control which goes well beyond nudity into the everyday image of a woman and her appearance.

It stuns me that issues about dress, uniform and appearance, whether slutwalks, anorexia, fashion models weight, the wearing of the burqa, or even religious symbols at work almost always seem to centre around women. All this seems to be about power, whether the power of other people (not always only men) over a woman's body or her own power to control that body shape and weight or what she wears. If this looks like a feminist critique it isn't really. I am basically a libertarian on this - I can't honestly see why, practical considerations aside, people, male or female, should not wear or look how they want. If I am shocked by someone's appearance, that is my problem and I should learn from the experience. That is the approach I take to anyone who through physical appearance is out of the norm.

Anyone painting the nude or even attending a life class has standing behind them this whole history and cultural tradition of the portrayal of the naked body, particularly the female body. If you are sensitive to these issues you can often almost feel the power flowing as surprisingly cultural sensitivity and taboo grants authority to the one naked person amongst a group of clothed people in the room.

Berger goes on to say much more about power issues and how they affect women's view of themselves and men's view of women. It is well worth reading and still challenging now.

I have just a couple of observations about life drawing and painting, though. From my experience, when women take their clothes off they usually look beautiful, when men do the same they usually look a bit funny. This may be my hormones, but I have noticed that female artists also usually prefer the female form as well. A male model may be very good indeed, especially if you are looking at character, form, strength, but for grace and sensuality the female form is best - also the mistakes don't show as much.

Just as a postscript see this take on the issue from Jean Baudrillard:

"At male strip shows, it is still the women that we watch, the audience of women and their eager faces. They are more obscene than if they were dancing naked themselves."

Now that is whole other blog.