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Nude Maja * The Spanish Inquisition wanted to know who had commissioned Goya to paint this “obscene” image, so they summoned him to give an explanation. He presumably told them to stuff it, because they removed him from his position as Court Painter. (Tidbit: Goya absolutely refused to add clothes to his painting. Instead, he painted an entirely new one, La Maja vestida. The two are displayed side-by-side in the Museo del Prado in Madrid.)
Clothed Maja    (60 votes) |
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27 Responses to “Art History Week: Nude Maja”
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Also the first depiction of pubic hair… gotta love fine art.
The clothed one looks significantly bustier.
In fact, she looks like the precursor to Barbie — check out that waist-hip-bust ratio!
This painting never did much for me and I think I’ve started to figure out why. Aside from some seriously fucked up looking tits. The head and body proportions look “off”.
I’ve gone back and looked at all the paintings (even the french) in order of when they were painted and the shift in style, depiction of the female form, it’s amazing! So far we have gone from 1482 to 1863. Even the comparison of these from 1800 to the one painted in 1863 show a jump but it’s REALLY noticeable in Venus Rising 1482 to Sleeping Venus 1510 that’s 28 years and I would never had guessed the two were that close in history. Raf’s 1519 Young woman is kind close to the Venus Umbrino from 1538. Maybe it’s the paints used, I don’t know, the tones and shadowing seem similar to me.
I’m sorry I never took an art history/ appreciation class in college now.
I had to google Goya to see his work and found only one other nude he did and that was a black and white (looked like pen and watercolor?) The rest of his stuff is kinda dark. The troll thing eating the man… yeah, this guy needed therapy.
You really need to see some things in their real form rather than on the internet and fine art like the paintings Nick has been showcasing this week is definitely in that category. I’ve seen a couple of Goya’s paintings up close. If you ever get the chance, check out ‘La Fragua’ (the Forge) at the Frick in NYC. You can study it for an hour and constantly find something new to be impressed by.
Actually, you also need to look at more natural breasts and less silicone. The breasts are what unsupported natural ones do when a woman is reclining on her back.
actually you need to 1- get your head out of your ass and quit with the sarky comments 2 – figure out what the fuck you are you are talking about. Look at the position of her body in relationship to the chair. Since both her breasts are ‘natural’ even if they were firm as stone the sag would be DOWNWARDS or straigt forward (like the left breast). She’s positioned on her SIDE and rolled towards the viewer. The position of the right breast looks as though it’s attached to her side below her armpit and there is a what 4 inch? 8 inch? gap between the two.
Thanks! I was hoping you would post this lovely pair but didn’t want to suggest it (it is, as you have pointed out on several occasions, your ‘freakin’ POD’). Now my wife is waiting to see if you post one of her favorites (hint: Spanish, 17th century, the only nude he ever painted)
First, don’t worry about suggestions. I take suggestions very well. I just don’t put up with complaining. Nope, not one bit. So, suggestions/requests: Good. Complaining: Bad.
Now, about your request… Sadly, I’m going to disappoint your wife.
Personally, I love Velázquez, especially Las Meninas, but when you see tomorrow’s painting, you’ll know why I picked it instead of Venus del espejo. Tomorrow’s painting is… gorgeous. Simply gorgeous.
I find it amusing that this came up in gocomics today
http://www.gocomics.com/looseparts/2010/02/10/
Wonder if he reads here….
LOL! that caught me by surprise! “Today Show Special”
Apparently the Inquisitors insisted that Maja have a new hair dresser as well as some clothes. Actually the “copy” is rather close to the first one. Those little differences only go to show that even the best of them can’t repeat exactly what they have done before. After all, she is three years older.
The lessons continue ….!
Thanks
For those who have enjoyed this week’s PODs from Nick, may I humbly recommend the following website: http://www.artrenewal.org/
Mouse over Museum on the top bar and prepare to be amazed. I love the Living Masters section; real art is being produced today. A poster earlier this week recommended William Adolphe Bouguereau. The site has an extensive collection of his paintings; beautiful work.
There was a painting with clothes? Had to look twice…
Spanker, I agree about the form Goya gives his lady: there’s something that bothers me about the unity of her body—it’s almost as though he painted each part in isolation and then tried to put them together. “Saturn devouring his son” (the ‘troll’ painting you’re talking about) is a part of the “Black Paintings,” work Goya did when he was afraid he was going nuts. Of course, he’d also been through the Peninsular War—that had to help with the nightmares.
Many people dismissed him after the ‘love affair’ with impressionism began (in turn, of course, after they’d spent many years deploring it), but if you want to see the work of someone who’d good at painting the female form, try William Bouguereau. Maybe Nick could compare Botticelli’s “Birth of Venus” to his (and others’ versions).
Not that I have anything against impressionists. My favorite is Renoir. I enjoy how, in his “Bathers” series, he makes the skin of the ladies glow in the sunlight. Then again, I pretty much love everything he painted, even some of the stuff done by tying brushes to his hands after he developed arthritis.
I don’t want to say that I don’t like Bouguereau, but he doesn’t hold a candle to any of the paintings this week.
I mean, I like his work, and he’s very talented, but what’s the difference between one of his paintings and a fine art photograph? Granted, he was painting long before photography matured to the point of fine art, but the question still stands. His work is just too… antiseptic. It’s realistic, but it isn’t inspired.
Here, I’ll show you what I mean.
Compare Bourguereau’s Knitting Woman to Fra Lippi’s Madonna and Child with Angels.
Fra Lippi was painting nearly 400 years earlier, too. Yet his painting of the Madonna is captivating, mysterious, a bit sad. Bouguereau’s art is competent, beautiful, and… missing a soul.
About 20 years ago, there was a Bourguereau show in Hartford. One has to see over a dozen at one time to realize just how uninteresting competent painting can be.
Hey nick just wanted to say GREAT stuff and thanks for including links to other works of art.
Maybe sometime a side by side comparison of the Painted ART nude (which to most people is acceptable) and the Photographic ART nude, which for some reason is deemed pornographic by many.
I think it has to do with the words art and craft. Painters and sculptors were considered craftsmen employed by the rich and powerful. Today they have more control over their work but can also face more criticism of their work because it has a much wider audience. This audience has a much more divergent agenda and sometimes a different world view than the European wealthy of the past.
Nick,
Thanks for this warm painting on this cold and almost blizard day.
Sincerely,
(snowed in, level 3 emergency, only sanctioned emergency vehicles may use the [non existent] roads.)
From The Basement Of The Science Building
I saw a work of art the other day……….my dick was in it. Love the sight, Nick…….different is not bad……no complaining!
Finally decided to set up a login here. I have been enjoying the clasic artworks. They show a style that is seriously lacking in todays world.
One of my old lovers was a woman who’s body was very, very similar to the Nude Maja. Different in the face and hair, though similar in name which is rather surprising to realize. Her breasts also rested well apart when she lay back, it is not so uncommon in women, especially mothers who have nursed a couple of babies, or more so.
As delightful, intelligent, passionate and responsive a lover as anyone could hope to imagine. And my oh my was she ever sensitive to breast and nipple stimulation, a true joy to create pleasure with, always!
Sadly we did not work out on other aspects of a relationship, as is oft to happen … fond memories though
* SIGH *
long time reader, first time commenter:
I just see you all saying “maja” as if it where some kind of name or title.
It’s actually a word typically used slang-ly that refers to a pretty, beautiful, gorgeous lady (or man if you say majo).
I’ve never heard this word used outside of Spain, or in any latin american literature (not that I have read much),
so loosely translated, it’d be: “The pretty lady dressed”, The pretty lady naked”
another use for the word “maja” is as a verb that means “mash” as in mashed potatoes = “papas/patatas majadas”
Don’t know if this will ‘help’ any, but I hope so. [My father was a Commercial Artist, trained in Fine Arts {oils, pencils, etc}, so I 'grew up with this stuff'...]
In the first one – the nude – the head has sharper ‘definition’ while everything else has softer, thus accentuating the head/face/’portrait’. The angles of the various body structures indicate she is laying in ‘this’ position, but her breasts/chest/rib-cage do not conform to the same set of angles. For her breasts to be in the splayed positions they are, her chest/rib-cage would have to be twisted a bit more ‘to her right’ than the rest of her indicates. Granted, a minor quibble, but part of what can lead to a feeling of ‘something’ not quite looking right without being able to say exactly why.
Also, we ‘learn’ that people have bodies that are consistent with a ‘set of head-proportions’; i.e.-the body is ‘X’ number of ‘heads’ in height, the nipples are at ‘n’ number of parts of ‘head’, the legs are ‘L’ multiples of ‘head’, etc, etc. HOWEVER, this is for the more-or-less “modern” physique (specifically American and {Northern} European), and these ‘SoHP’s do not and did not always ‘agree’ with today. My grandparents, fex, were born in the 19th Century in the mountains of southern Italy, and their ‘SoHP’s were sliiiiiightly “off” by modern standards, as were most of their contemporaries. It could easily be that we ‘expect’ The Lady to meet modern standards in our minds without even thinking/noticing it, and are ‘bothered’ when she isn’t.
In -some- ways, the clothed version is better done than the nude version .. .. until you notice the clothed treatment of her waist+lower ribs. Serious ‘ooooops’!
But as long as you’re just enjoying the paintings for what they are – portrayals of a beautiful woman – and don’t get all hung up in artistic minutiae, et alia, then they are =indeed= wonderful & beautiful paintings.
“Tha- Tha- That’s all, folks!”
I often go to a museum for some fine art.
But seldom I leave my house for this.
Their are so many on line museums nowadays.
I love this one
Sir Lawrence
Alma-Tadema – A Sculptor’s Model
Is it me or do her boobs look very far apart?
And looking closer at her uppder torso it looks very misshapen.
At first glance it looks great but when you start looking closer at the details you see so much weird about her body.
Looks like Goya did a bad photoshop in that first one.
lol