Modelling nude for an art class - what's your opinion?

[Balance]

A friend of mine and I were arguing with someone about the “morality” of my friend, a faithful Catholic with a healthy sexuality, modelling for an art class - modelling in the nude. I don’t see anything wrong with it - what do other people think?

My friend being the person he is, it’s not going to lead him into any “near occasion of sin” and the artists are too busy concentrating on their drawing to be lead into any “near occasion” themselves - and my friend’s not responsible for what goes on in their heads anyway, right?
People have modelled nude for millenia - many great artworks depict nudes. Pope John Paul the Great’s famous line about the paintings in the Sistine Chapel, at the time of their restoration, to “remove their clothes” (that later artists had added to the nude figures at the behest of later Popes who objected to the nudes) is pertinent here.

I guess I’m making a point in this post about attitudes to the body, sex, and sexuality that some Catholics hold - attitudes I see as being prudish and unhealthy, attitudes that some people in here hold. But I’m open to other people’s opinion about this question (Nude Modelling: Put Your Clothes Back On vs. Go You Nude Thing) and don’t neccessarily believe that objecting to someone modelling nude is synonomous with prudishness, but can be.

 

[vz71]

Balance:

A friend of mine and I were arguing with someone about the “morality” of my friend, a faithful Catholic with a healthy sexuality, modelling for an art class - modelling in the nude. I don’t see anything wrong with it - what do other people think?

What exactly is meant by “healthy sexuality”??

 

[Balance]

vz71:

What exactly is meant by “healthy sexuality”??

It means he’s not doing it because he’s an exhibitionist, and also that he’s chaste and happy - it’s not going to lead him into sin.

What would you take it to mean? You use two question marks - giving the impression you object to this term, or are confused by it? It seems pretty self explanatory to me…?

 

[m134e5]

There is nothing more wrong with nudity now than there was when Michaelangelo made his statue of David- who is naked as the day he was born. The human body is indeed a beautiful creation and if the intent of the art is to appreciate that- but not lust- then there is nothing wrong with it.

 

[vz71]

Balance:

What would you take it to mean? You use two question marks - giving the impression you object to this term, or are confused by it? It seems pretty self explanatory to me…?

Just confused. The second question mark was a typo.

 

[blessedstar]

There is no immorality in a person modelling for an art class. It is the fetid minds of people that could possibly construe something evil into the recreating of the human image in art unless that art is purposefully offensive. The human body is good, it is only when it is used for something evil that the nature of the human body is compromised.

The human body must be studied as a matter of anatomy for the artist and the human skeleton is drawn over and over again before a student of art ever draws a human in the flesh and anything else construed by this is not the intention of artists studying human form and representing it in the 2D or 3D plane. There is no artist who ever lived who would be able to paint the human form without first studying life-drawing. God created this beautiful creation of the human body and as the pinaccle of His creation and coming Himself in this human form it is only natural that this is pictorially and sculpturally represented. Infact an artist shares in the Creationship of God being of a creative nature themselves. This should be encouraged especially to the glory of God in creative images of Christ’s life and the history of redemption and it is the job of an artist and their models to perform such a high task as to work towards the glory of God in their works.

I can tell you I have seen many naked bodies and drawn their image as an artist in the past and nothing fetid passed through my mind nor the models as we worked to learn how to map out the human form pictorially and create images of realistic countenance. Had I not studied human form I would not have been able to draw it, ever!

There is nothing else to say upon this matter. Sometimes it seems people will complain just about anything and read sin into everything that is innocent instead of focusing on what is truely evil in life!

 

[beckyann2597]

Just to add my two cents…
I too was a little confused when you siad “healthy sexuality”. When I have heard someone say this before, it was a tongue in cheek way of saying someone was an exhibitionist and had a ‘healthy’ (substancial and active) sexual drive. It also insinuated that the person was sexually active.

 

[Balance]

beckyann2597:

Just to add my two cents…
I too was a little confused when you siad “healthy sexuality”. When I have heard someone say this before, it was a tongue in cheek way of saying someone was an exhibitionist and had a ‘healthy’ (substancial and active) sexual drive. It also insinuated that the person was sexually active.

Interesting that one phrase could be taken in two different ways - a good example of how it’s always a good idea when entering into an argument/debate/discussion to define the terms involved. I meant “healthy sexuality” as meaning a whole, chaste, integrated and moral approach to sex and sexuality - others, as you point out, might read it as a lustful, unchaste or promiscuous approach to, or expression of, sexuality.

 

[JimG]

blessedstar:

I can tell you I have seen many naked bodies and drawn their image as an artist in the past and nothing fetid passed through my mind nor the models. . .

And speaking of defining terms, fetid means “having an offensive smell,” so we all hope that was not the case.

 

[JeffAustralia]

Maybe this is another topic altogether, but how would this thinking apply to “nudism/naturism”, ie. people going to nudist beaches and/or clubs and hanging around naked with others? If somebody was being completely honest in their minds and not having sexual thoughts about the naked folk around them, is this still not sinful?

 

[blessedstar]

JimG:

And speaking of defining terms, fetid means “having an offensive smell,” so we all hope that was not the case.

Of course you are correct, I apologise it is simply a term I use to describe something objectionable. It’s one of my ‘phrases’ and I should have thought before I used it expecting others to understand my speech for simply what it is and not as it should be. I am sorry.

 

[coyote]

Of course you are correct, I apologise it is simply a term I use to describe something objectionable. It’s one of my ‘phrases’ and I should have thought before I used it expecting others to understand my speech for simply what it is and not as it should be. I am sorry.

Off topic.
But, couldn’t something be conceptually putrid?

RE: nudist gatherings. If you have ever been to one you would rapidly lose the delusion that it is all about sex. These are real people, not models or body builders; old and young, fat and thin, hairy and well…not.

 

[Magicsilence]

Balance:

A friend of mine and I were arguing with someone about the “morality” of my friend, a faithful Catholic with a healthy sexuality, modelling for an art class - modelling in the nude. I don’t see anything wrong with it - what do other people think?

My friend being the person he is, it’s not going to lead him into any “near occasion of sin” and the artists are too busy concentrating on their drawing to be lead into any “near occasion” themselves - and my friend’s not responsible for what goes on in their heads anyway, right?
People have modelled nude for millenia - many great artworks depict nudes. Pope John Paul the Great’s famous line about the paintings in the Sistine Chapel, at the time of their restoration, to “remove their clothes” (that later artists had added to the nude figures at the behest of later Popes who objected to the nudes) is pertinent here.

I guess I’m making a point in this post about attitudes to the body, sex, and sexuality that some Catholics hold - attitudes I see as being prudish and unhealthy, attitudes that some people in here hold. But I’m open to other people’s opinion about this question (Nude Modelling: Put Your Clothes Back On vs. Go You Nude Thing) and don’t neccessarily believe that objecting to someone modelling nude is synonomous with prudishness, but can be.

I can’t imagine the Saints stripping it all off, but Im not sure if its a sin or not.

In Christ.

Andre.

 

[KCT]

Call me a prude, but I wouldn’t want anyone but my husband to see me that way. If my body belongs to him, why should other men get to see it?

Is it a sin? I don’t know. Would I do it? No way. —KCT

 

[DaveBj]

The only art class that would pick me to model nekkid would be one for comedic cartoonists I am a walking poster child for the effects of gravity on the human body.

DaveBj

 

[Sean.McKenzie]

KCT:

Call me a prude, but I wouldn’t want anyone but my husband to see me that way. If my body belongs to him, why should other men get to see it?

Is it a sin? I don’t know. Would I do it? No way. —KCT

AMEN!!! One of two things have got to be true, either evryone in here is a Saint or God created more Immaculate conceptions than the Chruch is letting on. (ie. you could not be tempted, and were born without concupiscence) KCT makes a really excellant point, unless you are willing to lie to yourself I think everyone in here who is married would have a very big problem with someone else seeing your spouse nude.

I am in complete agreement with those who say the body is a beautiful thing, I alos am in agreement that, even the body Nude is a beautiful thing objectively, you need only read The Theology of The Body by John Paul II (of fond memory) grasp that. However you must understand in what context you are supposed to fully appreciate that, I don’t think that you could morally justify seeing someone else nude except of course (Doctors, OBGYN, etc)

 

[JeffAustralia]

I asked this question to get some other opinions. I tend to think that “nudists” claims of seeing bodies in a non-sexual way are not being completely honest with themselves or with others. And I know how I feel inside when I consider the idea of other men seeing my wife walking around naked. I have these primal mental visions of myself running amuck with a red-hot poker! No way! No one but ME gets to see those goodies!

 

[Sean.McKenzie]

JeffAustralia:

I asked this question to get some other opinions. I tend to think that “nudists” claims of seeing bodies in a non-sexual way are not being completely honest with themselves or with others. And I know how I feel inside when I consider the idea of other men seeing my wife walking around naked. I have these primal mental visions of myself running amuck with a red-hot poker! No way! No one but ME gets to see those goodies!

I couldn’t agree more with you!!! !!!

 

[Balance]

Magicsilence:

I can’t imagine the Saints stripping it all off, but Im not sure if its a sin or not.

In Christ.

Andre.

Francis stripped nude in front of a lot of people. I’m not sure that relates to my original post, but it’s worth remembering.

 

[Balance]

Sean.McKenzie:

I don’t think that you could morally justify seeing someone else nude except of course (Doctors, OBGYN, etc)

What about paintings of naked people then, such as the ones displayed in the Sistine Chapel? I don’t think one could “morally justify” looking at such artworks but not at a live artwork (a naked person) without some fairly murky logic.